- ISBN13: 9780060822187
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Lucette Lagnado’s father, Leon, is a successful Egyptian businessman and boulevardier who, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit, makes deals and trades at Shepherd’s Hotel and at the dark bar of the Nile Hilton. After the fall of King Farouk and the rise of the Nasser dictatorship, Leon loses everything and his family is forced to flee, abandoning a life once marked by beauty and luxury to plunge into hardship and poverty, as they take flight for any count… More >>
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World
This book is not one that stuck with me after reading it. I found the author to be repetitive. Where else but in America can one find free medical treatment. And who paid for the education at Vassar? Too bad Papa didn’t decide to immigrate to Israel.
Rating: 3 / 5
This book got off to a great start and it was fascinating reading about Cairo and its inhabitants. However, the more I got into the book it soon became clear the father is a selfish, self-centered man and the whole family needs to revolve around him. Once they leave Egypt, the book goes rapidly downhill. When they finally arrive in the States, they become the kind of immigrants nobody wants. Nobody works, everyone is constantly complaining about everything and blaming everyone except themselves but taking what they can from whomever they can and expecting others to take care of them. At one point the author, who is the daughter in the family, complains that her brother is forced to take a job when what she thinks he should do is go to college. Hello? No one prevented him from doing that. They just wanted someone else to pay for it. It is very annoying to read about a family given so many opportunities only to make nothing of themselves. It detriorates into a lot of poor me, poor us and I sure don’t enjoy reading that! They should have stayed in Egypt.
Rating: 3 / 5
The first part of the book in Cairo, as others have mentioned before me, was intriguing for a reader like me who loves to read about people and places outside of my sphere of experience. And especially I seem to be drawn to Middle Eastern/African settings.
The elegant Cairo of a long gone era was very interesting as were the family members.
But the book went downhill in the second half. I kept hoping for a larger understanding from the author and a comprehension and conclusions drawn about her family and their situation that would raise it above the whine level.
And as an animal lover as much as I tried the nagging thoughts of how the cats who were so much a part of their family were cast aside so easily became symbolic of the family’s ethics in general.
So basically I ended the book feeling more sorry for the abandoned cats than the family members who I increasingly found harder to like.
Rating: 1 / 5
I found the book very interesting and the story well told. Her conclusion that that the bureaucrats who wavered about bringing her father over should be pleased that he was a good credit risk is totally wrong. Yes, he paid back the JEWISH relief agency for their passage, but sold ties under the counter, for cash so never had to report any income and pay any taxes to this country. His family had large medical expenses paid for by the welfare system of this country. None of his children served in the military of this country. So as far as the United States is concerned all this family did was take. They also seem to have no appreciation for the large economic burden they placed on the citizens of this country.
Rating: 4 / 5
I have not read the book but purchased it on the raves of a few special friends that have similar reading tastes…
Rating: 5 / 5