A well-composed, poignant reflection on an international childhood.
The daughter of an American mother and an Arab father recalls her years growing up in the Middle East.
In 1951, Abdul-Baki’s parents met in a grocery store in Washington, D.C., where East Jerusalem–born Khalil Mohammad Karjawally was working one of two jobs to supplement his income while he completed his master’s degree in economics from George Washington University. At the time, Jean Ashburn Pedigo, the lively, red-haired daughter of a prominent Southern family, was in the city as an adventure. They were married in 1951 when Jean was 19 and Khalil was 22, and one year later, the author was born. Khalil, who Americanized his name to Kal, went on to work for the U.S. government, and in 1956, the family moved to Tehran, where Kal was sent to establish an English language program for Iranian military officers. For two years, they lived in luxurious accommodations, enjoying the perks of the foreign elite. When Kal’s contract ended two years later, he secured a job with the American Independent Oil Company, and the family moved to an expatriate desert compound in Kuwait on the Persian Gulf. The author’s mother was committed to her daughter learning to speak Arabic, so the girl was enrolled in a Kuwaiti girls’ school outside the compound in the village of Shuaiba. Abdul-Baki vividly recollects her early feelings of loneliness and the struggle to find her place as a 6-year-old outsider: “I was the only red-haired and half-American girl in the school, and I was not a part of the village life of my friends.” This eloquently composed remembrance has a musical lilt and emotionality, and it effectively relates the joys, fears, and tragedies the author experienced during a youth spent learning to navigate two cultures. In abundant personal vignettes, the memoir also lovingly portrays Kal’s family in Jerusalem and their welcoming embrace of the author and her mother. The narrative is filled with detailed descriptions of Arab food and dress, and of the warmth and closeness of family connections, while offering an intriguing view of expatriate life.
A well-composed, poignant reflection on an international childhood.Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 978-1647425371
Page Count: 336
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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