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The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (P.S.) |  | Author: Lucette Lagnado
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.99
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Seller: jimmyelgato
Rating:  81 reviews
Sales Rank: 9802
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 006082218X
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.892407471092
EAN: 9780060822187
ASIN: 006082218X
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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 country that would have them. A vivid, heartbreaking, and powerful inversion of the American dream, Lucette Lagnado's unforgettable memoir is a sweeping story of family, faith, tradition, tragedy, and triumph set against the stunning backdrop of Cairo, Paris, and New York. 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.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 81
 Griping Family Sage and wonderful slice of history July 10, 2007
J. Smart (New Rochelle, NY)
41 out of 43 found this review helpful
The Man in the White Sharkskin suite is a stunning work, in it's emotional depth against a period of history I knew little about. The author/narrator tells the story of her family, particularly her father, as they thrive in Egypt under King Farouk, then, literally overnight, lose their material possisions, family and promience but not their humanity and dignity when Nassar comes to power. Their 'before' life was vibrant and full materially, but emotionally fraught with tensions of all sort especially between the husband, Leon and the wife, Edith. The author uses the point of view of the youngest member of the family, Loulou who can barely understand what's happening but acts bravely for her father's sake and for his love. The author writes beautifully, and with such poignancy, but never with self pity or malicious anger regarding the family's fall. By the time the family arrives in America, they are completely lost as they stand on the dock watching the big cars go down the West Side Highway. The great symbol of American prosperity, yet the cars and the dream they represent pass the family by. They never regain the life they longed for, except in the success of Loulou who becomes an award winning journalist and now author. I feel that Leon would be thrilled that, against his advice to this daughter to find a 'little job', she found her calling and restored the family legacy and told the greater story, through the Lagnado saga, of the history of Egyptian Jews of that time.
A wonderful read.
Heartbreakingly beautiful June 29, 2007
Peter Bloch (New York, NY United States)
44 out of 47 found this review helpful
I was at that reading also, and purchased another copy of the book (my third!) for my daughter. Lagnado's story of her family's incredible history in Egypt and then the heartbreaking exile they endured, ending in Brooklyn where her father, old and seemingly defeated, probably saves her life with one last almost magical invocation of his old powers of persuasion is inspiring and tragic at once. After reading this beautiful book, it's clear where Lagnado's passion as an investigative reporter to expose corruption and the indignities we too often heap upon the elderly was born.
beautiful, unique, and deeply touching September 6, 2007
Stephanie Cowell (New York, New York United States)
24 out of 25 found this review helpful
There are very few memoirs as deep and beautiful, as compassionate and tender, as this one of a young girl born to a loving, devout, but old world Jewish patriarch in the last decades of elegant Cairo in the 1950's. Shortly after all the Jews would flee and be scattered in exile: from an elegant, ordered life, they would face hunger and poverty first in Paris and then in New York where the father, now old and sick, would try to reestablish himself in a business and the children would find their own way in this strange new country.
An extraordinary memoir. There are only a few I have read ever which come near it.
Outstanding August 4, 2008
groupworker (Midwest United States)
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
This is my favorite book of the year. It combines all of my interests - Jewish history, family struggles, impact of culture, and so much more. The author spent her early years in Egypt and the family was forced out by anti-semitism. While in Egypt, they lived a glamorous life for many years, but with a father whose moods ranged from loving to abusive. From there they entered a generation of poverty. The writing is beautiful. Too often personal memoirs seem to wane 1/2 way through, but this book continued to engage me and I really didn't want it to end.
A real gem June 27, 2007
Lynn (Woodstock, NY)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Wow, this is an absolute must-read. It is foremost a family saga with an array of captivating characters... but it is also about an overlooked piece of history -- the flight of tens of thousands of Jews from Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s. From Cairo to Paris to Brooklyn... from riches to rags.... I loved this book. I heard the author speak at Barnes & Noble in New York last night and she told a story that was at once personal, moving and mesmerizing. After the reading, the line to buy her book extended around the block -- and I noticed that a lot of people were buying several copies.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 81
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