Synopses & Reviews
The author of the award-winning
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit—hailed by the
New York Times book review as a “crushing, brilliant book”—returns with this, the extraordinary follow-up memoir
In The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, Lucette Lagnado offered a heartbreaking portrait of her father, Leon, a successful Cairo boulevardier who was forced to take flight with his family during the rise of the Nasser dictatorship, and of her familys struggle to rebuild a new life in a new land.
In this much-anticipated new memoir, Lagnado tells the story of her mother, Edith, coming of age in a magical old Cairo of dusty alleyways and grand villas inhabited by pashas and their wives. Then Lagnado revisits her own early years in America—first, as a schoolgirl in Brooklyns immigrant enclaves, where she dreams of becoming the fearless Mrs. Emma Peel of The Avengers, and later, as an “avenging” reporter for some of Americas most prestigious newspapers. A stranger growing up in a strange land, when she turns sixteen Lagnados adolescence is further complicated by cancer. Its devastating consequences would rob her of her “arrogant years”—the years defined by an overwhelming sense of possibility, invincibility, and confidence. Lagnado looks to the women sequestered behind the wooden screen at her childhood synagogue, to the young coeds at Vassar and Columbia in the 1970s, to her own mother and the women of their past in Cairo, and reflects on their stories as she struggles to make sense of her own choices.
Review
“In the radiant presence of Lucette Lagnado herself--and in The Arrogant Years, her moving and unsparingly revelatory second memoir… we have honesty as purity of style, and lucidity as burning emotion, and history as an enduring hymn to resilience.” Cynthia Ozick
Review
“You dont have to be Jewish to take this entrancing literary ride…. The Arrogant Years is a lovely book, sad and hilarious by turn, written with love of life, and an enormous affection for language. You will love it too.” Malachy McCourt, New York Times bestselling author of A Monk Swimming
Review
“[Lagnado] is a gifted storyteller who spins ordinary family experiences into enchanting fairy tales, complete with magical backdrops...nasty villains and dashing heroes…. Vivid and evocative...tender and heartfelt.” Kirkus
Review
“Lyrical…[Lagnados] memoir is a fully fleshed, moving re-creation of once-vibrant Jewish communities.” Publishers Weekly
Review
“[A] frank and searching chronicle of lost and found dreams… Lagnado is spellbinding and profoundly elucidating in this vividly detailed and far-reaching family memoir of epic adversity and hard-won selfhood.” Booklist (starred review)
Review
“The Arrogant Years [is] a paragon of memoir writing, a story about the complex swirl of people and events and forces out of which individual lives are made some, like Ms. Lagnados, more painfully, but also more fully, than others.” New York Times
Review
"This second volume of Lagnado's autobiography richly deserves the same splendid recognition that greeted The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit. The two books eloquently capture the troubled experiences of those Egyptian Jews who came to the United States by vividly recounting what happened to one burdened family South Florida Sun Sentinel
Review
"[The Arrogant Years] focuses on [Lagnado's] mother, Edith, and her coming of age in Cairo, and then her own childhood in Brooklyn. Lagnado, who now works for The Wall Street Journal, traces the parallels between the two in this immigrant story." Booklist (starred review) Boston Globe
Review
“With precision and searing honesty, Lucette Lagnado writes in The Arrogant Years about her torn allegiances as both an Egyptian Jew growing up in America in the 1960s and ‘70s and the youngest daughter of unhappily married parents.” O, The Oprah Magazine
Review
“[Lagnado makes] the vital point that there can be many perspectives on the same story.…affecting…[an] affectionate, engaging memoir.” Boston Globe
Review
“[A]ffecting…Lagnado writes with great affection and compassion for her mother, and she describes displacement and the urgency of memory. Readers... of Sharkskin will again be moved…. It is also a portrait of awe-inspiring caregiving by a loving daughter.” Jewish Week
Review
"[Lagnado's] writing is tinged with a sense of loss." Jewish Week
Review
“Weaves together the life stories of several women in a way that will resonate with readers of any ethnicity…Lagnados done a fabulous job, again, of transporting us to a multi-ethnic Cairo that no longer exists. That alone is worth the price of admission.” Library Journal
Review
“Lagnado is at her best when she plumbs her own psyche to sort out her lifes ups and downs…a rewarding journey.” Washington Post
Review
“[E]nchanting…Its risky to write a second memoir about the same time period, but in Lagnados hands, the result feels natural and right. She skillfully reminds us that a single human life is infinitely complex, that there are as many sides to a story as times it is told.” New York Times Book Review
Review
“[A] taut and moving memoir…With a journalists economy of style and an intuitive sense of story, [Lagnado] weaves an account of her own arrogant years.... [A] meditation on exile and assimilation, feminism and the enduring ties of family.” San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“From Pashas to paupers, from the alleyways of Cairo to the working class streets of Brooklyn, this epic family saga of faith and fragility showcases Lucette nicknamed Loulou by her familyas a budding contrarian in her alien New World.” Jewish Woman Magazine, Book of the Month
Review
“This moving follow-up [to The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit] revolves around Lagnado and her mother, both of them battling their fates and coming of age in times of social change.” New York Times Book Review, Paperback Row
Synopsis
" Lagnado writes] in crystalline yet melodious prose."
--New York Times
Lucette Lagnado's acclaimed, award-winning The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit (" a] crushing, brilliant book" --New York Times Book Review) told the powerfully moving story of her Jewish family's exile from Egypt. In her extraordinary follow-up memoir, The Arrogant Years, Lagnado revisits her first years in America, and describes a difficult coming-of-age tragically interrupted by a bout with cancer at age 16. At once a poignant mother and daughter story and a magnificent snapshot of the turbulent '60s and '70s, The Arrogant Years is a stunning work of memory and resilience that ranges from Cairo to Brooklyn and beyond--the unforgettable true story of a remarkable young woman's determination to push past the boundaries of her life and make her way in the wider world.
Synopsis
“[Lagnado writes] in crystalline yet melodious prose.”
—
New York TimesLucette Lagnados acclaimed, award-winning The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit (“[a] crushing, brilliant book” —New York Times Book Review) told the powerfully moving story of her Jewish familys exile from Egypt. In her extraordinary follow-up memoir, The Arrogant Years, Lagnado revisits her first years in America, and describes a difficult coming-of-age tragically interrupted by a bout with cancer at age 16. At once a poignant mother and daughter story and a magnificent snapshot of the turbulent 60s and 70s, The Arrogant Years is a stunning work of memory and resilience that ranges from Cairo to Brooklyn and beyond—the unforgettable true story of a remarkable young womans determination to push past the boundaries of her life and make her way in the wider world.
Synopsis
In this much-anticipated new memoir, Lucette Lagnado revisits her first years in America, first in Brooklyn, then at Vassar and Columbia, revealing a coming-of-age interrupted by a bout with cancer at age 16. Its devastating consequences would rob her of her ability to have children and of her arrogant years--the years defined by their overwhelming sense of possibility, invincibility, and confidence--leaving her with the lonely echo of her own fears and judgment: I am not woman enough. Lagnado looks to the women sequestered behind the wooden screen at her childhood synagogue, to the young co-eds at Vassar in the 1970s, to her own mother and the women of their past in Cairo, and reflects on their stories as she struggles to heal, to make the leap from girl to woman without the grace and strength of her arrogant years.
About the Author
Born in Cairo, Lucette Lagnado and her family were forced to flee Egypt as refugees when she was a small child, eventually coming to New York. She is the author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, for which she received the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in 2008, and is the coauthor of Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz, which has been translated into nearly a dozen foreign languages. Joining the Wall Street Journal in 1996, she has received numerous awards and is currently a senior special writer and investigative reporter. She and her husband, Douglas Feiden, reside in Sag Harbor and New York City.