The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit

Posted on 14 August 2017 by Lucette Lagnado

In vivid and graceful prose, Lucette Lagnado re creates the majesty and cosmopolitan glamour of Cairo in the years between World War II and Gamal Abdel Nasser s rise to power Her father, Leon, was a boulevardier who conducted business on the elegant terrace of Shepheard s Hotel, and later, in the cozy, dark bar of the Nile Hilton, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit But with the fall of King Farouk and Nasser s nationalization of Egyptian industry, Leon and his family lose everything As streets are renamed, neighborhoods of their fellow Jews disbanded, and the city purged of all foreign influence, the Lagnados, too, must make their escape With all of their belongings packed into twenty six suitcases, their jewels and gold coins hidden in sealed tins of marmalade, Leon and his family depart for any land that will take them The poverty and hardships they encounter in their flight from Cairo to Paris to New York are strikingly juxta posed against the beauty and comforts of the lives they left behind.An inversion of the American dream set against the stunning portraits of three world cities, Lucette Lagnado s memoir offers a grand and sweeping story of faith, tradition, tragedy, and triumph.Winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a brilliant, crushing book and the New Yorker as a memoir of ruin told without melodrama by its youngest survivor, The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit recounts the exile of the author s Jewish Egyptian family from Cairo in 1963 and her father s heroic and tragic struggle to survive his riches to rags trajectory. Free Read [ The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit ] by [ Lucette Lagnado ] For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr In The Man in the Sharkskin Suit, Lucette Lagnado regales us about Jewish life in Cairo prior to the Suez revolution This is a tale of her well to do parents who were as much a part of Egypt as the pyramids themselves Cairo through her lens appears to rival the glamour of Paris and New York, and it is evident in the books first sentences why no one would want to leave With this prose I was captivated by Lagnado s parents story immediately I felt sympathy to her parents reluctance to leave E In The Man in the Sharkskin Suit, Lucette Lagnado regales us about Jewish life in Cairo prior to the Suez revolution This is a tale of her well to do parents who were as much a part of Egypt as the pyramids themselves Cairo through her lens appears to rival the glamour of Paris and New York, and it is evident in the books first sentences why no one would want to leave With this prose I was captivated by Lagnado s parents story immediately I felt sympathy to her parents reluctance to leave Egypt and their difficulties assimilating in New York Much has been written about Ashkenazic Jews immigration to the United States and how with each generation traditions fall by the wayside Less has been revealed about the Sephardic immigration and subsequent assimilation into American society a good fifty years later Not only was I privileged to read magnificent prose, I also got to experience life of my Sephardic brethren ...56 56 5626 . ..Next time someone tells you about the terrible struggle of the Palestinians, remind him that the Jews of Syria and Egypt, communities whose existence predated Islam, were robbed and exiled by corrupt Arab nationalist tyrants This is the story of one family Fifty years later, are the descendents of the exiled patriarch hunkered down in a refugee camp, living on handouts and plotting bloody revenge Nope This book is personal, not political, and deeply affecting in the writer s treatment of her Next time someone tells you about the terrible struggle of the Palestinians, remind him that the J... .I thoroughly liked this book The author speaks from the heart about her family s life with respect and candor Mostly autobiographical in content, the history of the family and particularly the patriarch is the backbone on which it is written A complete riches to rags story, the early part of the book deals with a world completely alien to post war Egypt and its Jewish population Fleeing from their country of birth and rich lifestyle into the unknown life of refugees with no state , no hom I thoroughly liked this book The author speaks from the heart about her family s life with respect and candor Mostly autobiographical...I d been meaning to read Lucette Lagnado s family memoir for awhile Learning that the book had won the 2008 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature motivated me to actually pick it up This past weekend, I finished reading the book And it s an excellent read.Given what often seems an unending stream of memoir related scandals, not to mention the primacy of what I ll charitably call the dysfunction narrative and of course the interrelationship between the two , reading THE MAN IN THE WHITE SHARK I d been meaning to read Lucette Lagnado s family memoir for awhile Le... My mom shared this book with me at the beach It s a non fiction account of a family who immigrates to the United States from Egypt in the 1960s I m not typically drawn to non fiction but this book reads like fiction Towards the end, I...

English
14 August 2017

Lucette Lagnado