An action-packed account of the civil war in Yemen from a woman who experienced it firsthand.
How one woman became a war journalist almost by accident.
Fed up with life in New York City, where she felt stuck in a rut, 20-something Kasinof longed to go to the Middle East and write freelance articles for a living. When a friend suggested she move to Yemen, a country that in 2009 seemed safer than Egypt or Syria, the author leapt at the idea. Having studied Arabic in college, she quickly fell in love with the hospitable people of Yemen and even became a minicelebrity when she played an American in a Yemeni soap opera. She had no idea that the country would soon become a hotbed of anti-government protests, which escalated into a full-blown war between supporters of the dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and those who wanted him ousted from power. Suddenly, Kasinof was in the middle of the gunfire, writing news reports for the New York Times and loving (almost) every minute of it. In this debut memoir, the author provides vivid details of those years, bringing readers into the heat of the conflicts, into the mosques-turned-hospitals filled with the wounded and dying, and into the sitting rooms where she interviewed some of the most important men in Yemen while they chewed khat leaves together. The tensions ran high, as did the adrenaline, which Kasinof admits she became addicted to. She placed herself in some sketchy situations in hopes of an interview, but her affection for the Yemeni people made her want to stay there and report what she saw to the world. Fortunately for readers, she’s taken those moments and shared them, offering a moving portrait of life as a war correspondent.
An action-packed account of the civil war in Yemen from a woman who experienced it firsthand.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1628724455
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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