An up-close look at one man’s bizarre journey to international notoriety.
Debut author Stalinsky offers a profile of an American who became an al-Qaida operative.
Adam Pearlman’s story begins with his upbringing in rural California, where he, along with his siblings, was home-schooled on the family farm. In his teenage years, he developed an encyclopedic knowledge of death-metal music, and he channeled his interest into writing reviews of new releases and even recording a solo album under the name Aphasia. At the age of 16, however, his life took an abrupt turn. While staying with his grandparents in Santa Ana, California, in the mid-1990s, he converted to Islam and changed his name to Adam Gadahn. As he explained in an essay at the time, “I discovered that the beliefs and practices of this religion fit my personal theology.” Following his conversion, he fell under the influence of a group of “radical jihadists” in the area, eventually traveling to Pakistan and becoming “Azzam the American.” With this new persona, now bearded and frequently brandishing a weapon, Gadahn would help shape al-Qaida’s propaganda wing, appearing in and producing numerous videos over the years. These videos would get the attention of audiences ranging from would-be terrorists to U.S. government operatives, and they’d eventually lead to charges of treason and death by drone-strike. Stalinsky’s book relies heavily on material from other publications; for example, a January 2007 article from the New Yorker proves indispensable to early chapters. However, it’s at its best when laying bare Gadahn’s message over the years. The author makes frequent use of transcripts of his subject’s videos, effectively offering close commentary on his statements and showing how they reflected political developments in the United States and abroad. For example, he tells of how Gadahn produced annual videos celebrating the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, advised American terrorists to purchase firearms at gun shows, and demanded the United States stop sending Peace Corps volunteers to the Islamic world. Stalinsky’s highlighting of such sentiments, particularly when compared with Gadahn’s innocuous teenage praise of obscure bands like Timeghoul, makes for a truly unnerving examination of a real-life enemy of the state.
An up-close look at one man’s bizarre journey to international notoriety.Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9678480-2-0
Page Count: 496
Publisher: MEMRI Books
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This early reader is an excellent introduction to the March on Washington in 1963 and the important role in the march played by Martin Luther King Jr. Ruffin gives the book a good, dramatic start: “August 28, 1963. It is a hot summer day in Washington, D.C. More than 250,00 people are pouring into the city.” They have come to protest the treatment of African-Americans here in the US. With stirring original artwork mixed with photographs of the events (and the segregationist policies in the South, such as separate drinking fountains and entrances to public buildings), Ruffin writes of how an end to slavery didn’t mark true equality and that these rights had to be fought for—through marches and sit-ins and words, particularly those of Dr. King, and particularly on that fateful day in Washington. Within a year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed: “It does not change everything. But it is a beginning.” Lots of visual cues will help new readers through the fairly simple text, but it is the power of the story that will keep them turning the pages. (Easy reader. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-448-42421-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of...
Known for his self-deprecating wit and the harmlessly eccentric antics of his family, Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day, 2000, etc.) can also pinch until it hurts in this collection of autobiographical vignettes.
Once again we are treated to the author’s gift for deadpan humor, especially when poking fun at his family and neighbors. He draws some of the material from his youth, like the portrait of the folks across the street who didn’t own a TV (“What must it be like to be so ignorant and alone?” he wonders) and went trick-or-treating on November first. Or the story of the time his mother, after a fifth snow day in a row, chucked all the Sedaris kids out the door and locked it. To get back in, the older kids devised a plan wherein the youngest, affection-hungry Tiffany, would be hit by a car: “Her eagerness to please is absolute and naked. When we ask her to lie in the middle of the street, her only question was ‘Where?’ ” Some of the tales cover more recent incidents, such as his sister’s retrieval of a turkey from a garbage can; when Sedaris beards her about it, she responds, “Listen to you. If it didn’t come from Balducci’s, if it wasn’t raised on polenta and wild baby acorns, it has to be dangerous.” But family members’ square-peggedness is more than a little pathetic, and the fact that they are fodder for his stories doesn’t sit easy with Sedaris. He’ll quip, “Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow—it’s not like you're going to do anything with it,” as guilt pokes its nose around the corner of the page. Then he’ll hitch himself up and lacerate them once again, but not without affection even when the sting is strongest. Besides, his favorite target is himself: his obsessive-compulsiveness and his own membership in this company of oddfellows.
Sedaris’s sense of life’s absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of both.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-316-14346-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
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