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danubooks 's review for:
Picture in the Sand
by Peter Blauner
Alex, a teenaged Muslim boy in Brooklyn who is unhappy with the West’s treatment of young men like him, runs away to join jihadis in the Middle East. He sends his parents an email to explain what he has done, says his name is now Abu Sabor, and doesn’t answer their replies. Six weeks later, his grandfather Ali makes one last attempt to reach Alex, letting him know how his departure has devastated the family and hoping that his appeal will merit a response. Ali includes the first pages he has written of his own life as a young man in Egypt, when like Alex he embarked on a journey to defend his faith and push back against discrimination from Western influences. Alex does respond, and the reader is allowed to see not just the correspondence between the defiant, idealistic grandson and the grandfather who wants desperately to save him from repeating his own mistakes, but also the unfolding history of Ali Hassan.
We see Ali as a young man in Cairo, where his father is a golf caddy and his mother a chambermaid at the Mena House Hotel. The pyramids are just down the street from his house. His favorite thing to do is to go to the cinema and watch movies hoping one day to move to Hollywood and make movies of his own. Things get rough in his life; his mother, sisters and many others in his community die during an outbreak of typhus. His father turns to drink, his older cousin Sherif believes that becoming a more devout Muslim is the path to survival, and some say that those (like Ali’s parents) who served the Western tourists brought the plague to the local community. Ali persists with his dreams, is admitted to university in Cairo, and makes money by showing films and finally makes his own. He meets and becomes besotted with Mona, a young woman who is part Egyptian and part French, and who wants to become an actress. Ali’s big break comes when the famed American director Cecil B. De Mille comes to Egypt to film the epic “The Ten Commandments”. He is hired to act as Mr. De Mille’s driver, and does his best to impress the director. There is unrest in the streets of Cairo, however and in short order they find themselves in a car trapped within a rioting crowd. They escape, but someone is accidentally killed. That death will haunt Ali, and the American film crew, in the days and weeks ahead. Mr. De Mille is not an easy man for whom to work, and Mona is swept off her feet by some of the Western crowd. Ali becomes more disheartened and disillusioned by his treatment at the hands of the Americans; when he is fired from his job for telling Mr. De MIlle his honest opinion, it is the final straw. Sherif, his cousin, invites him into his group of rebels, and soon Ali is involved in a plot to ruin the De Mille film.
Alex reads his grandfather’s story, and first thinks that his grandfather understands and supports his radicalization. He is appalled at his grandfather’s early admiration for Western culture, but is delighted that Ali eventually sees the error of his ways and plots against the Western visitors. His grandfather tries desperately to convey a different message; he knows that Alex’s journey will not end well, and pleads with him to leave before it is too late. Alex tells his grandfather bits about his current life, and over time he too becomes disillusioned with what he is seeing and what he is asked to do.
Set against the backdrop of Cairo in the 1950s and the filming of one of cinema’s most famous epic movies, the story of Ali juxtaposed with the modern day story of Alex, is fascinating to read. With Charlton (“Chuck”) Heston, Yul Brynner, Yvonne de Carlo and of course Cecil B. De Mille himself, its an interesting behind-the-scenes peak at these iconic members of Hollywood royalty, and how they may have treated the native Egyptians who helped to bring the film to fruition (spoiler alert: not particularly well). Resentment of the haves by the have nots is, as they say, a tale as old as time. Alex’s generation is not the first to push back against those who make them feel like lesser people, but Ali’s is a cautionary tale about the costs of unchecked rebellion. I found the book to be well-paced, with interesting tidbits about a Hollywood production set during the end of British rule in Egypt and the rise of Naguib and Nasser. I recommend Picture in the Sand highly to readers who enjoy historical fiction, especially during the period in question, as well as those who like a little Hollywood glamour thrown in. Many thanks to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sharing the advanced reader’s copy with me.
We see Ali as a young man in Cairo, where his father is a golf caddy and his mother a chambermaid at the Mena House Hotel. The pyramids are just down the street from his house. His favorite thing to do is to go to the cinema and watch movies hoping one day to move to Hollywood and make movies of his own. Things get rough in his life; his mother, sisters and many others in his community die during an outbreak of typhus. His father turns to drink, his older cousin Sherif believes that becoming a more devout Muslim is the path to survival, and some say that those (like Ali’s parents) who served the Western tourists brought the plague to the local community. Ali persists with his dreams, is admitted to university in Cairo, and makes money by showing films and finally makes his own. He meets and becomes besotted with Mona, a young woman who is part Egyptian and part French, and who wants to become an actress. Ali’s big break comes when the famed American director Cecil B. De Mille comes to Egypt to film the epic “The Ten Commandments”. He is hired to act as Mr. De Mille’s driver, and does his best to impress the director. There is unrest in the streets of Cairo, however and in short order they find themselves in a car trapped within a rioting crowd. They escape, but someone is accidentally killed. That death will haunt Ali, and the American film crew, in the days and weeks ahead. Mr. De Mille is not an easy man for whom to work, and Mona is swept off her feet by some of the Western crowd. Ali becomes more disheartened and disillusioned by his treatment at the hands of the Americans; when he is fired from his job for telling Mr. De MIlle his honest opinion, it is the final straw. Sherif, his cousin, invites him into his group of rebels, and soon Ali is involved in a plot to ruin the De Mille film.
Alex reads his grandfather’s story, and first thinks that his grandfather understands and supports his radicalization. He is appalled at his grandfather’s early admiration for Western culture, but is delighted that Ali eventually sees the error of his ways and plots against the Western visitors. His grandfather tries desperately to convey a different message; he knows that Alex’s journey will not end well, and pleads with him to leave before it is too late. Alex tells his grandfather bits about his current life, and over time he too becomes disillusioned with what he is seeing and what he is asked to do.
Set against the backdrop of Cairo in the 1950s and the filming of one of cinema’s most famous epic movies, the story of Ali juxtaposed with the modern day story of Alex, is fascinating to read. With Charlton (“Chuck”) Heston, Yul Brynner, Yvonne de Carlo and of course Cecil B. De Mille himself, its an interesting behind-the-scenes peak at these iconic members of Hollywood royalty, and how they may have treated the native Egyptians who helped to bring the film to fruition (spoiler alert: not particularly well). Resentment of the haves by the have nots is, as they say, a tale as old as time. Alex’s generation is not the first to push back against those who make them feel like lesser people, but Ali’s is a cautionary tale about the costs of unchecked rebellion. I found the book to be well-paced, with interesting tidbits about a Hollywood production set during the end of British rule in Egypt and the rise of Naguib and Nasser. I recommend Picture in the Sand highly to readers who enjoy historical fiction, especially during the period in question, as well as those who like a little Hollywood glamour thrown in. Many thanks to St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sharing the advanced reader’s copy with me.