Well-researched and candidly told, this book deserves shelf space next to volumes on Vladimir Vetrov and Kim Philby.
A detailed biography of Ashraf Marwan (1944-2007), an Egyptian national and Israel’s most vital informant.
According to Bar-Joseph (Political Science/Univ. of Haifa; The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources, 2005, etc.), Marwan was an ordinary man with grand ambitions. His frustration with Egyptian politics led him to contact Mossad, Israel’s intelligence network. What is surprising is how early this occurs in the book. In the first chapter, the author covers his parentage, youth, marriage to President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s daughter, and daring decision to betray his own government. Equally surprising is how difficult this process was, given the complex Cold War landscape; at first, his plea was ignored. In order to explain this landscape to his readers, Bar-Joseph dedicates much of the book to the bellicose relationship between Egypt and Israel, spotlighting the importance of Marwan’s espionage. As Mossad director Zvi Zamir once put it, Marwan was “the greatest source we ever had.” The most intriguing part of the book is the third act, when Marwan is slowly unmasked. Without a doubt, he helped save innumerable Israeli lives, but he is also described as an egotist and thrill-seeker, and he was clearly paid well for his services. Early on, Bar-Joseph addresses the big question: why he would do something so dangerous and unpatriotic. “His behavior included a need for stimulus, which often drives people to take risks, whether physical or emotional,” he writes. “Some people take up rock climbing, skydiving, or bungee jumping. But Marwan was not drawn to the sporting life; instead he indulged in both gambling and, later, in unsavory business deals; or in taking needless risks in his contacts with the Israelis.” The author writes from an Israeli perspective, but he shows great empathy for a man who was in turn respected, reviled, and almost certainly murdered.
Well-researched and candidly told, this book deserves shelf space next to volumes on Vladimir Vetrov and Kim Philby.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242010-7
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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
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