My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, by Ariel Sabar ****1/2

This true story can be read on several levels:

On one level , it’s an autobiography, the story of journalist’s Ariel Sabar’s attempt at coming to terms with a father he did not understand and did not like as a youth. There is honesty here, and Ariel is willing to portray himself in less than a favorable light. The book, probably initially a search for what his father’s life had been, becomes an attempt not only to reconcile the past and present but also to seek some forgiveness for his adolescent treatment of his father.

On another level, it’s the wonderful biographical, if often, sad story,of Yona Sabar’s life, his life in the ancient Kurdish town of Zakho, and his and his family’s emigration to Israel and then to the US.  More than 100,000 Jews left Kurdish Iraq in the 1950s, leading to the virtual extinction of their particular culture and language.

Yona has a difficult time with his emigration(s), even though he becomes a well -known professor at UCLA and is able to write and publish an authoritative book on the Aramaic language (which becomes virtually extinct between 1950 and 2000). Ariel tells the story of his father and his father’s struggles in a direct and lovely and ultimately loving way. And ultimately, Yonar is the hero here, even though he never seems to feel the triumph of his successes.

On a third level, it’s the story of the descendants of one of The Lost Tribes of Israel and their way of life that somehow existed in the midst of Islamic lands. As part of his search and story, Ariel returns to Zakho and attempts to capture what remains of his father’s former life (almost nothing), but he does succeed to some degree in giving the reader a sense of a way of life that no longer exists.

If any, or even one, of the three levels mentioned above (autobiography of Ariel, biography of Yonar, and/or portrait of a lost culture) holds interest for you, you time will be well spent with this book, which won the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography

The Likeness, by Tania French ****

This book is a follow up, in several ways, to French’s best selling In the Woods.

I didn’t read the former book but was encouraged to go directly to The Likeness by my daughter who said French’s second detective thriller could be read independent of the first. And was a good read.

I think there is something going on in what I politically incorrectly call ‘chic lit.’  Both of French’s book and the ones by Steig Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who  Played with Fire, both reviewed here in Millerstime.net) feature strong female characters, headstrong protagonists.

Both main characters are delightful and a relief from some of the other ‘chic lit’ nonsense that is out there.

The Likeness requires a certain suspension of disbelief (that detective Cassie Maddox can pass for another woman, Lexie Madison, and not be discovered by a group of four other housemates).  If you can accept that premise, then this psychological thriller is pretty entertaining, although a bit of editing wouldn’t have hurt.

I’ll read French’s first book eventually, but I think I need a bit of a break from all these headstrong women.

However, should someone get their hands on an English translation of Larsson’s third book, I would probably pay a premium to get it sooner than it’s British publishing date in October.

Lush Life, by Richard Price ***1/2

The story concerns a 35 year old struggling ‘artist’ (among other activities) who lives on the Lower East Side and becomes involved in a murder. 

You know the guilty parties early on, but the strength of this novel is the language and the conversations.  Price has captured, at least for me, the current lingo as well as a view of the Lower East Side that I clearly miss when I go to Chinatown, Little Italy, and the (former) Jewish world of lower NY.

Worth a read if you want to see a world that you probably are not aware exists. I think ‘social realism’ (according to the NY Times) may be the appropriate term for what Price is doing here.

The First Family, by David Baldacci ***

Definitely an airplane read or a beach book.

If you know Washington, DC, then maybe I’d push my rating up to four stars.

I read a Baldacci book every year or so when I want to lose myself in a story, a political thriller, a mystery, and not think too much.

This one is pretty good, if you like this kind of escapism.

                                           **************************

What have you been reading this summer, and what did you enjoy?