A review by blevins
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World by Lucette Lagnado

3.0

Interesting family memoir about life in Cairo, being uprooted to Paris and then New York. Love the Cairo descriptions--although they tend to get a bit repetitive--and whilst I'm not a big memoir reader, enjoyed this book for the most part. Lagnado gets the atmosphere of what I'd imagine Cairo to be like--would so love to visit there!--but as the story progresses it kind of loses steam for me. This is probably not the fault of Lagnado and her story of her Jewish family's forced exit from the country and city they loved, but more due to the fact that it's a memoir. I just never enjoy memoir's as much as straight non-fiction due to the fact that writer is always talking about themselves, their family--I never quite trust it as much as I might if it was a biography written by someone not trying to describe their memories or various family members. Maybe it's just my own deep seeded thoughts about memoirs at work again with The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit?