5 comments about American Hostage: A Memoir of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq and the Remarkable Battle to Win His Release.

1. Back in 2004, the sight of innocent civilians, including journalists, kidnapped in Iraq became all too common. We saw the horrifying pictures of helpless individuals surrounded by brutal men too cowardly to even show their faces, heard the kidnappers' ridiculous demands, prayed for the victims and their families, and felt a deep sense of outrage and anger at the barbarism of the terrorists. Our hearts went out to those involved, yet the personal reality of such a nightmare situation never really touched us - certainly not in the way it did the victims and their families back home. I pictured grieving families coming together to wait out the ordeal, unable to do anything but hope and pray. The family and friends - and colleagues - of Micah Garen, however, were anything but paralyzed, and that is what makes his story so fascinating. Alongside Garen's experience in captivity, we also have a rundown of the tireless, far-reaching efforts of a small army of supporters, led by his fiance Marie-Helene Carleton.
   
   Both Garen and Carleton had gone to Iraq to shoot a documentary about the widespread looting taking place there, at some of the most significant archaeological sites in the world. Both authors share their experiences in this regard, and it is an important subject - important enough for both of them to risk their lives to document it - but I really don't have enough space to discuss it here. Carleton returned home, but Garen chose to stay two more weeks in order to film the new city guards that were set to begin protecting the site at Umma. Their months-long stay overlapped with the transfer of power to Iraqi authority in mid-2004, which turned out to be a most dangerous time, as fighting broke out between Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and coalition forces. On August 13, Garen and Amir Doshi, his friend and translator, traveled to Nasiriyah, where they were kidnapped from the market place and taken to the office of al-Sadr. From there, they were taken to a remote location in the marshes, their new home a small enclosure surrounded by a wall of date palm fronds jammed down into the earth. This certainly didn't fit my mental image of a hostage cell, but it gave them only the smallest glimmer of hope that they might be able to escape. Garen takes us through the daily routine that soon developed, the conversations he and Amir had with different guards (with different ones seemingly having different agendas), and brings home both the emotional and physical toll their captivity took on both men. All of the doubts, fears, internal debates, and fleeting senses of hopefulness are vividly detailed, giving one at least a sense of what Garen's ordeal must have been like.
   
   Marie-Helene Carleton's story is, in some ways, more gripping and emotional than Garen's. While he at least had a minute-to-minute sense of what was going on, his family and friends started out with nothing more than the nightmarish report of his kidnapping. They had no idea if he was alive or dead, where he might be, or who might be holding him - and the question of the kidnappers' identity was of the utmost importance. It could be a group connected to al-Sadr, looters with a grudge against Garen's journalistic work in Iraq, common criminals, or al Qaeda. If Garen ended up in Zarqawi's hands, there was almost no chance of his coming home alive. Upon learning the horrifying news, Carleton immediately began working for his release. Along with the obligatory calls to government officials, she began reaching out to her own network of contacts both inside and outside of Iraq itself. Within hours, a small army of family and friends were hard at work, contacting anyone who might be able to help and fending off media inquiries left and right. Since they did not know who had taken Garen, they held off going to the media - under some scenarios, a personal plea from the family could be of great help, but in others it could contribute to Garen's death. Their fellow journalists, however, came to their aid in spades, with everyone contacting anyone they thought could help. Their greatest hope was that they could somehow get al-Sadr to release a statement calling for the hostages' release, but al-Sadr was pinned down at the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf at that time. The story of all of this behind-the-scenes work is fascinating and rather amazing, and there's even a twist at the end.
   
   There are additional aspects to this story that I haven't even mentioned. The different goals of the men who held Garen and Doshi in captivity is perhaps the most striking - and revealing as to the nature of this turbulent time in Iraqi history. These men could be cruel, but they were a far cry from the brutal savages I would have assumed them to be. I should also note that there's really no political subtext to be found in this story, nor are there any claims of heroism. Garen, Carleton, and their loved ones truly come across as wonderful human beings, and the story is told in such a way that you feel as if you are witnessing all of these events and emotions first-hand. This is an informative, well-written, emotionally compelling read - and, best of all, it has a happy ending.



2. I really loved reading this from start to finish. It is a moving story of journalist and filmmaker Micah Garen who was in Iraq filming a documentary. While finishing up, he was kidnapped by militants in Southern Iraq.
   This is a well written, interesting and powerful book that reveals the details of his work, kidnapping and release. At times, you will definately need some tissues, but overall, you will come away with having read a fascinating (scary at times) book. This is something that should be read by everyone.



3. Most books about the Iraq war are more general in nature, without that personal touch throughout the story. "American Hostage" is not one such book -- instead, Micah Garen and Marie-Helene Carleton tell the world their own personal story, in the middle of Iraq's chaos.
   
   The two were filming a documentary in Iraq, but Micah decided to stay behind and do a few more weeks of camerawork, while Marie-Helene flew ahead to New York. Her last words before leaving were "I love you." That was a good thing, because while trying to photograph a man in a market, Micah is attacked by a mob for being a foreigner.
   
   In the days that follow, Micah and his local guide Amir are kept prisoners, while Marie-Helene anxiously awaits her boyfriend's arrival -- until the morning when Micah's mom calls her, saying that he has gone missing. With little information to go on, Marie-Helene goes on a quest to get her lover back -- even as a radical group threatens to kill him.
   
   The Iraq war has been a political powderkeg ever since it began, but "American Hostage" is one of the rare stories that doesn't really belong to either side of the debate. It's a more intimate story, by people who only wanted to film a documentary.
   
   And as a whole, it's a compelling love story. Not hearts-and-flowers love, but a willingness to go anywhere and do anything to save the person you care for. The story is told from both viewpoints -- Micah's and Marie-Helene's -- both of which are sort of like fleshed-out diary entries, with details of what they saw and felt.
   
   Through their eyes, we get to see the horrible, despairing condition of a prisoner, as well as the desperation of the prisoner's loved ones as they mount a campaign to get him back. Micah is a better writer, getting across his feelings as he wobbles between hope and fear, but Marie-Helene's story is almost as compelling.
   
   Adding to the story is a collection of photographs, including poignant looks at looted museums, frightening rallies, and a look at the "shrines" the families erected as they hoped for Micah's safe release. Finally, there are pics of the families rejoicing as they are reunited with Micah.
   
   A tense, frightening story, "American Hostage" is a true look at modern Iraq in wartime, and a love story with a happy ending. Compelling.



4. I love a good cliché, don't you? "Gripping", "Page turner" and on and on. Of course those terms had an origin once, and that origin reminds us that the terms sometimes have true meaning.
   
   I don't have a lot of time for reading, so I like a book that is episodic in the sense of having small "bites" that may be consumed at leisure - especially in the bathroom. Once there, with nowhere else to go for the moment, reading may proceed until "the work is done". I actually read the entire Bible in that manner.
   
   "Hostage" however presented and interesting contrast - I found myself staying longer and longer after "work", and then, in the end simply took it to my picnic table to finish over lunch.
   
   I am truly thankful for the writers' journalist "chops". Lots of pictorial prose presented in brief sentences and paragraphs. I was able, at least in part, to share the experience with each of them. The alternating chapters construct added enormous power to it.
   
   I am reminded that Hemmingway started out as a journalist too - in a war zone, yet! I do wonder whether the novel form lies in their future.



5. His story is well told. I found myself thinking about all the small things that many of us really don't ponder about Iraqi life sitting in our modern homes living our modern lives. That is the true gift that this book gives the reader is its insight in to the struggles of ordinary iraqis that leads them in to taking up arms and doing some of these things that we all here about. My only issue with his story is that he never explains how some one with less connections would fair in his same predicament. I don't think that the story would end quite the same way.

5 comments about Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege.

1. Amira Hass is an Israeli Jewish reporter living in Gaza with the Palestinians. When I first read this book about a few years ago, I became fascinated by this woman not only an Israeli Jew but the daughter of Holocaust survivors and her life in Gaza of all places by her choice. Amira Hass helps us to understand the life in Gaza even as an outsider. She helps us to understand the Palestinians' life better than any other reporter or author. Of course, there is always politics and the war between Israel and Palestinans. But as of today where Gaza is under seige. You begin to feel compassion for both sides and wonder when will there ever be peace. It's interesting that the author is an atheist or agnostic. Believe me, the book is the worth the read and the price. For all it's worth, the book is probably important to read more than ever.



2. I have spent the last summer reading numerous books on the Palestinian perspective of the MidEast crisis, and Hass' 'Drinking The Sea At Gaza' is perhaps the finest and most comprehensive account I have come across to date. Mixing the intellectual depth of Edward Said with the readability of Wendy Pearlman (of 'Occupied Voices'), Hass, in painstaking detail, recounts the daily struggle for Palestinian self-determination within the occupied territories, specifially Gaza, and reveals an intensely human drama not often revealed in the world press. This book is a must read, as are all of Hass' Ha'aretz (Israeli daily newspaper) articles on the conflict.



3. A very moving account of daily life without the politics, written with care and compassion.



4. Written in the wake of the Oslo peace process, Drinking the Sea at Gaza vividly describes the unrelenting hardship that characterizes life in the Gaza Strip. Amira Hass, a journalist for the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz and a daughter of Holocaust survivors, shocked friends and colleagues when she became the first Israeli correspondent to live in the Strip. While there, she witnessed grinding poverty, the collective frustration that exploded into the first Intifada (uprising), and the hope instilled by the peace process, which gave way to desperation as it failed to assuage the suffering of the average Palestinian. "In the long run," Hass writes, "[Palestinians] will judge the Oslo Accords...by measuring the breadth of their freedom as a people and as human beings." The book demonstrates how, ultimately, Oslo achieved neither, and Hass' account in many ways foreshadows the current crisis in Gaza.
   
   Hass begins with an account of conditions under the Israeli occupation, ranging from the military presence, mass arrests, and curfews to the economic burdens of heavy taxation and decaying infrastructure. She describes the largely grassroots uprising that sprang from these conditions in December 1987 and the military reprisals, including the imprisonment of a large part of the Palestinian population. Hass does not feign objectivity. She condemns the occupation in no uncertain terms and clearly sympathizes with the Palestinian plight, although her characterizations of Israeli troops show both cruelty and kindness, from a soldier who beats a young boy to a prison guard who surreptitiously brings a cake for a prisoner.
   
   Much of the book, however, deals with the aftermath of the Intifada and the peace process, focusing on the economic stranglehold caused by frequent border closures, long waits at checkpoints (causing worker absenteeism and the spoiling of exported products sitting for hours in the sun), and the practice of banning males under 40 from working in Israel (the only source of income for most Gazans). Besides the economic repercussions of Gaza's isolation, Hass describes the inability of many Gazans to access adequate health care (available only in Israel) and inability of students to travel to their universities in the West Bank.
   
   The book does not overlook the internal problems within Palestinian society. Hass describes the pervasive gender inequality in Gaza and the plight of its women. She also discusses Arafat's widespread corruption and his suppression of dissent. Crucially for understanding the current crisis, she portrays the inverse correlation between hope and religious extremism. Though written a decade ago, this book sheds important light on the situation in Gaza and how it got to be this way.



5. I first saw Amira Hass in a joint presentation with Ahdaf Soueif at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, NM several years ago. It was almost a full house, most were in awe of the quiet demeanor of this most courageous and unusual woman. She was a reporter for the Israeli newspaper, Ha'aretz, is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and a person of remarkable empathy for the dispossessed.
   
   She conveyed her mother's memories of Sarajevo before the Second World War, "a tolerant city, almost idyllic..." where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together peacefully. Her book was for sale in the lobby after the lecture, and in it she explains her reason for choosing to live in Gaza, a place name many Israelis use interchangeably for "Hell." "In the end, my desire to live in Gaza stemmed neither from adventurism nor insanity, but from that dread of being a bystander, from my need to understand, down to the last detail, a world that is, to the best of my political and historical comprehension, a profoundly Israeli creation."(p. 7). Her approach is the antithesis of the "Big Man" theories of history, stating that: "... it has always been my conviction that history is made more in the currents of ordinary life than it is by rulers and their ceremonies."
   
   She documents that ordinary life unflinchingly, in achingly painful detail. The daily humiliations that Palestinians endure in dealing with the Israeli bureaucracy she calls appropriately "Kafkaesque." For example, she says: "Israel's profound need to rewrite Palestinian history was evident in the identity cards issued to refugees born before 1948. If the card holder was born in the Gaza Strip, the space for `Place of Birth' was filled in with the name of a specific town or village, such as Khan Yunis or Jabalia. But if the card holder was born within the borders of what had since become the new Israeli state, then only one word appeared in that space: `Israel.' (p179). She describes the sadism that Yigal Amir, an Israeli soldier, practiced on the Palestinians, and which he eventually turned on Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister he assassinated. (p 23).
   
   She is equally meticulous in documenting the economic inequalities and injustices committed on the Palestinians, the higher taxes they must pay compared to their Israeli counterparts, and the pitiful governmental services they receive in return. She explains the infamous "life" tax, even if you have no income, you must pay a tax for simply being alive - you must have income is the "reasoning" of the bureaucracy, otherwise you would be dead! She sums up these arrangements with that word that Jimmy Carter has also had the courage to use: "apartheid." (p148)
   
   She lived in the Gaza for three years, never having her personal safety threatened. During this period, she also documented the corruption of the senior Palestinian leadership, which was a prime cause of the rise of various Islamic fundamentalist groups. It is even sadder to realize that this was during the "optimistic period" immediately following the Oslo Accords of 1993. Conditions today must be much worse than what she has described, and no hope is really in sight.
   
   She deserves all the journalist and peace awards available for illuminating what she calls "terra incognita" for Israelis (but also for the world) "and easier now to demonize as a breeding round for terrorist intrigue and fundamentalism." (p342). This book should be read in every school, "war college," and diplomatic post.

No comments about Am I Dead Yet?.

1 comments about The Universe: From Flat Earth to Black Holes and Beyond.

1. Asimov is amazing. I liked all I read of his science books. His "universe" is clear and interesting. His other books on science are also outsatanding.

   I highly recommend him.

No comments about Inside Outsider: The Life and Times of Colin MacInnes (Twentieth Century Classics) (Twentieth Century Classics).

2 comments about Courage Beyond Words.

1. This book makes claims about the World War II feats of Michel Thomas that are completely at odds with military records, newspaper articles from that era and other reliable sources.
   
   Some examples:
   
   1. Author Christopher Robbins claims Thomas was an officer in the U.S. Army. In fact, Thomas was a civilian employee, and the L.A. Times, which debunked much of this book, has National Archives military documents from 1946 bearing Thomas' signature alongside the words "civilian assistant."
   
   2. In the book, Thomas said he was born in Poland. However, for 38 years, he told journalists he was born in France -- and different parts of France at that.
   
   3. Robbins claims Thomas was with the first battalion of U.S. troops as it entered the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945. After the L.A. Times proved otherwise, Thomas later tried to backtrack, claiming he never said he was with the battalion, only that he arrived at Dachau sometime the first day. Unfortunately for Thomas, he had repeated the story from the book in a sworn court affidavit.
   
   4. The book says Thomas single-handedly discovered and rescued millions of Nazi Party ID cards from destruction at a paper mill near Munich in May 1945. But this version of events is flatly contradicted by October 1945 articles in the New York Times and London Express.
   
   5. Robbins also claims Thomas escaped Gestapo butcher Klaus Barbie. But in 1983, the U.S. Justice Department's chief Nazi hunter called a press conference to denounce Thomas' Klaus Barbie stories. And when Thomas testified at Barbie's 1987 trial, the prosecutor asked the jury to disregard Thomas' testimony, saying it wasn't made in good faith.



2. This new edition of Michel Thomas's biography contains a new final chapter, which describes Thomas's battle in the final years of his life to counter the false and misleading implications of a 2001 profile in the LA Times by its former humor columnist Roy Rivenburg.
   
   Rivenburg ignored a raft of evidence Thomas showed him, as well as extensive documentation in the book, and portrayed Thomas as a fraud who fabricated or exaggerated his WWII experiences.
   
   By cherry-picking minor contradictions, while ignoring overwhelming evidence that undercut his `angle', Rivenburg implied that Thomas did not serve as a CIC Agent, was not a Dachau liberator, played no role in the discovery of the Nazi Party's worldwide membership card files in May 1945, and lied about his encounter with Klaus Barbie.
   
   All of these implications are false.
   
   The investigation undertaken for Thomas's defamation suit against Rivenburg and the LA Times resulted in Thomas's WWII comrades coming forward, unanimously supporting his "claims" and providing documentation to the US Army which led to Thomas receiving the Silver Star for his bravery fighting with US troops in France in 1944. Senators Bob Dole and John Warner pinned the medal on Thomas at the new WWII Memorial in Washington during the week of its dedication in 2004. The Ambassador of France also attended, and saluted Thomas for his bravery fighting with the French Resistance.
   
   Here are some of the facts Rivenburg ignored, and continues to ignore more than six years after his profile was published:
   
   Michel Thomas served as a CIC Agent from 1945-47, as attested to by every surviving member of his CIC unit, all of whom gave sworn declarations in his defamation case against the LA Times. Agent Walter Wimer, for example, stated that Thomas "was sent out on missions by our commanding officers in the same capacity and with the same duties and powers as the other Agents of our unit." Agent Theodore "Ted" Kraus stated, "I worked closely with Thomas within the CIC for approximately 15 months from 1945 to 1947. Thomas operated as a full-fledged CIC Special Agent, not as a civilian employee, translator or investigator. " Kraus was interviewed by Rivenburg in 2001, but was never mentioned in the profile.
   
   Michel Thomas was at the liberation of Dachau on April 29, 1945. He took photos there - and kept the negatives -- that were verified by the curator of the Dachau Memorial museum. Thomas's presence at the liberation was later verified by the very sources Rivenburg quoted in his article to discredit Thomas. After reviewing this evidence and interviewing Thomas, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum honored Thomas before a large crowd at their "Salute to Liberators" event in May 2004.
   
   Thomas's role in the discovery of the Nazi Party's membership card files was confirmed by the leading expert on captured German war documents from the US National Archives, Robert Wolfe. In 2003, Wolfe wrote a monograph detailing this evidence and concluding that, just as he "claimed", Thomas discovered the files at a paper mill outside Munich in the final week of WWII. This was further bolstered by a 2006 article by a veteran prosecutor from the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the US Attorney's Bulletin.
   
   Thomas's 1983 criticism of then-OSI chief Allan Ryan's report regarding Barbie was later proven correct when additional documents were found that showed CIC knew of Barbie's past well before 1949 and CIC officials covered this up. The current head of the OSI, Eli Rosenbaum, attended the Silver Star ceremony at the WWII Memorial in 2004.
   
   Rivenburg tried to portray Barbie's prosecutor Pierre Truche as calling Thomas as a liar by quoting an inaccurate translation of a 1987 article in Parisian newspaper Le Monde. Rivenburg left out that Truche met with Thomas in his office after the trial and said he excluded his testimony not because he thought Thomas was lying, but because "The truth can sometimes not be likely" and he did not want to have to explain Thomas's complex testimony to the jury.
   
   As for the "Thomas told journalists he was born in France for 38 years" allegation, Rivenburg provides no evidence for this. It is likely is based on a twisted interpretation of multiple news articles. Thomas left Poland at age 7 after he and his family experienced vicious incidents of anti-Semitism there, and never identified himself as Polish as an adult. He spent his formative years in France, spoke fluent French, and fought in the French Resistance during WWII, as is well-documented by the French Bureau des Anciens Combattants. It is likely that when he was interviewed over the years and was identified as French by various journalists, Thomas did not object to this. Rivenburg has now twisted this to state that Thomas "told journalists he was born in France." As with his other insinuations about Mr. Thomas, this one must also be taken with more than just a grain of salt.

3 comments about First Loves.

1. If you worked as a waiter in the Catskills you are going to love
   this book. Even if you haven't you're still going to be intrigued
   by Ted Solotaroff's journey towards what I might call "certified
   smarts". How many of us come out of the big cities, public libraries and dysfunctional families? Somewhere there is a life of the mind that will pay the bills. Meanwhile we're stuck in a dining room wearing a funny outfit and serving food to the paying customers.
   Mr. Solotaroff tells us what his journey has been like, honestly, forthrightlightly and sometimes too graphically but
   always entertainingly.



2. If you know the South Side, Hyde Park and the University of Chicago, and yearn for the days of the high 1950s - beatniks, bongo drums, struggling writers, waitresses, starving grad students - this book will sate your appetite. It beautifully recreates a lost world - so lost that it has almost been forgotten. Alternately tough, lyrical, and mother-ridden, Solotaroff is a wonderful writer.



3. Ted Solotaroff loved deeply, otherwise he wouldn't have spent so many years married to the madwoman Lynn, whose portrait is etched at the heart of this unsentimental memoir of a decent man, married to a terrible, neurotic woman. She had some literary pretensios herself, but did little but kvetch at him while he labored hard to help create--not only create but define--what was in the 1950s a totally new literary field--important American writing was for the first time predominantly Jewish. His great friend, Philip Roth, continues to write great novels, while some of the other fellows of the period have been forgotten save in memoirs by their friends, like this one.
   
   But, it was a trenchant time in American writing, and one which will not soon be forgotten, even if some of the magic names seem to dwindle away even as he writes about them, all over, anew. Meanwhile Lynn goes from bad to worse, even as Solotaroff gives her at least the virtue of being extremely sexy and alluring. At times we can see why he stuck it out with her. His father, on the other hand, was a pig. There should be more books like this one, books in which we can see a literary movement being born 9and the machinery required to make one happen).

5 comments about Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography.

1. Malcom Muggeridge (1903-1990), British writer and social critic, was one of the most brilliant controversialists and media personalities of his generation. This new biography draws on unpublished diaries, correspondence, interviews, and Muggeridge's prolific writings to chronicle the long and turbulent life of this legendary figure.

   "Wolfe's book is bound to become the definitive biography of Muggeridge." Publisher's Weekly

   "Wolfe has entered his subject's life in the most unobtrusive and salutary way, by adopting the attitude of a servant, so that the reader rides at the turbulent center of one of the most quixotic, troubled, and fascinating figures of twentieth-century Christendom. This biography is both an inspiration and a call to repentance to any who think they can exist as 'carnal' Christians. There's hardly anything Muggeridge didn't try until the Lord laid him low. Wolfe's work will be the standard for Muggeridge studies for years to come." Larry Wiowode, author of Poppa John




2. What an incredible mind! Muggeridge's depth of vision is laid before us, his words powerfully used. It would be accurate to say that he "licked the earth" for most of his life and we are given convictingly honest insight into how this part of his life played out. The Lord had something else in mind and it was a long, slow process for Muggeridge to finally come to Christian faith. Bogged down a bit in the middle for my taste, but such a satisfactory read; couldn't put it down for long.



3. Malcolm Muggeridge is a literary icon of sorts, a man who called Orwell, Greene and Powell friends, whose image was displayed in Madame Tussaud's Waxworks Museum in London, who was a celebrity editor and tv personality in Britain for much of his life. Yet, it is the final journey of his life, toward spiritual growth and faith, that makes him a lasting figure on the literary scene, and one of the most celebrated Christian writers of the century. Gregory Wolfe's able biography takes us through his literary and spiritual journey, from the dark days of his infidelities and his contemplation of suicide to his saintly days as promoter of Mother Teresea and debater of Bill Buckley. Wolfe introduces us to a wonderful thinker and pundit, and does so without pulling punches, but I would also recommend Muggeridge's own Chronciles of Wasted Time. A shame he never completed the final part of this memoir, for it is a classic in the confessional genre.



4. A very strongly recommended addition to academic and community library collections, Malcolm Muggeridge: A Biography is a straightforward study of the life and impact of Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990), a British writer and social critic at the center of controversy for his generation. In his creation of an absorbing portrait of a man did not shy from speaking out, biographer Gregory Wolfe has created an informed and definitive presentation on one of the most influential minds of the 20th Century.



5. Gregory Wolfe is a buoyant and dexterous writer who obviously loved Malcolm Muggeridge. This biography is a very thorough, fair, even warts-and-all account of the life of the great British writer and television host. Unfortunately, it is also more than that. Wolfe spares little effort in gratuitously reaffirming what he believes Muggeridge's political and religious agenda to have been, and spoils what should have been a straightforward biography with frequent little plugs for American conservative political prejudices. The result is that Muggeridge -- a lifelong critic of institutional fundamentalism in all its guises -- emerges from Wolfe's embrace as a kind of born-again neo-con. Muggeridge was not the only 20th century young socialist sympathizer to have had his utopianism later crash on the rocks of Stalin's crimes, but his own accounts of his journey from material idealist to spiritually minded skeptic are certainly the most entertaining to date in the English language.
   
   Wolfe, however, gives us few insights into Muggeridge's literary achievement, because he is too busy trying to position Muggeridge as some kind of raging bull against liberalism -- which, Wolfe editorializes, "opened the way for moral and social anarchy." Not only that, liberals also dismantled "the moral and cultural traditions of the West," Wolfe claims, and ushered in a "coarsening of attitude towards life," which featured (he says Muggeridge believed) terrible things like rising auto accident fatalities and factory farms for livestock. Leaving aside the fact that the beef industry or traffic laws have not been major targets of British or American conservatives, Wolfe's little jeremiads against liberalism fit uneasily into a biography of a man whose ethos was at odds with ossified, rigid belief systems of almost any kind. Muggeridge skirmished cheerfully with bombast wherever he found it, especially when it came from the pulpit or from politicians. He gave us, brilliantly, what all societies need: a skepticism administered with laughter. He always celebrated the simplest, least self-righteous of Christians, as well as the idea of Christendom, which surely to him meant a civilization of grace and acceptance, not polarization and intolerance -- which are often the hallmarks of how contemporary American conservatism is practiced. If Mr. Wolfe had written a book less intolerant of those whose political views he rejects, it would have more easily reflected the spirit of the man he celebrates.

5 comments about Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music.

1. Really die-hard music aficionados can probably fill you in on the dynamics in the Beatles or Rolling Stones -- and Helene Stapinski shows that it's not just the big groups that are like that. Her musical memoir, "Baby Plays Around: A Love Affair, with Music" takes on the internal workings of a rising little band.

   Freelance writer Helene Stapinski wanted the play the drums since she was a little girl, so she jumped at the chance to join I Hate Jane with two other women (and briefly roped her new husband into helping out). The band becomes unbalanced when Elizabeth leaves in a huff, and a pair of men join the group. But then things smooth out, and things appear to be going well.

   Professionally, that is. One day Helene's husband comes to her and admits that "baby's been playing around" with some little tart at his newsroom. Unsurprisingly, Helene is enraged, and the searing fights and all-out brawls seem to show that their marriage is doomed. So Helene buries herself in Stephonic ("I Hate Jane"'s new name) and plays the drums like never before...

   Not everybody can say they have relationship advice from Elvis Costello. And that weirdly intimate chapter where Elvis saves Stapinski's foundering marriage is one of the best in the entire book. Overall, she does an excellent job of bringing the band life to the readers -- the good (musical highs), the bad (internal tension), and the ugly (Stapinski being fired for no good reason).

   Stapinski's writing is pleasant and descriptive, like a novel. A very you-are-there feel. And her humor is likably self-deprecating: when thinking about how she has no cool indie music in her CD collection, she thinks "Bless me Elizabeth, for I have sinned I just purchased the new Sting album." That is, until she remembers the wonderful band Yo La Tengo.

   That isn't to say that Stapinski's writing is all fun. Her relevelations about her disintegrating marriage are heartbreaking. And there's some understandable bitterness toward the vaguely stalker-like newsroom tart, and a lesser amount toward band frontwoman/singer Julie, who apparently considered herself queen of all she surveyed onstage.

   Helene Stapinski draws readers into a crazy quilt of glittering clubs, Inuit towns and the heart of New York City. "Baby Plays Around," and a what a tune she plays in here.




2. What is it about journalists that they think their lives are so interesting? I'm tired of reading books and articles like this. Stapinski is one of the worst of the lot; she seems to believe that the world is dying to hear everything about her life, her family, her career. Please, spare us.



3. One of the richest, and perhaps one of the most honest nonfiction books I've read, Helene Stapinksi mines her obsessions, both music and love, to create a riveting masterpiece. This story of a freelance writer who falls through the rabbit hole to end up living a childhood fantasy -- as a drummer in a band -- speaks to any of us who hold a dream in our hearts about 'what could have been' were we to follow our wilder creative spirits. But it comes with a price, with significant and painful fallout in many of her relationships, particularly with her husband, and Stapinski doesn't spare any of the uncomfortable, awkward, and many times hilarious experiences she encounters, taking the reader on a wild ride through the smoky downtown clubs in Alphabet City. The writing is so inviting and personal you feel as though you're helping her lug her cymbals as she chases the chimera of musical fame, and discovers the true meaning of unconditional love: a love that persists through our fleeting, nonsensical adventures.



4. "Baby Plays Around --A Love Affair with Music" really is the perfect title for this book. The author plays around town in a rock band; her husband just plain plays around. His isn't the only affair here though.
   
   At first glance you might think that this book is meant for a pretty select audience, being about a little band struggling to make it in the New York club scene, but Helene Stapinski is really writing about relationships. As a band member, she must deal with the interpersonal dynamics occuring amongst a group of people trying to be creative and successful, and to add to the complexity of the situation, the band (at least for a time) also includes her husband. Jealousy, competition, ambition, anger and fear all come into play, but each are in a way quelled by the experience of music --an experience that seems to be an awful lot like love.
   
   Though I'm a pretty slow reader, I finished Baby Plays Around in just a couple of days. It held me in both its details and the arc of the character's emotional growth --which I think should be the measure of any great story.



5. I am always on the lookout for authentic books that deal with the music scene -- and I'm not talking about the countless fan books, nor the ones that are simply out to attack one genre or another. Stapinski's entertaining book is written with insight, passion, and unassuming honesty. On the surface it's just another band getting into playing music, being creative, and trying to make it one way or another. It is refreshing that it's not about a famous band, but a chronicle of one of the millions of groups that form and dissolve almost daily. It's easy to forget that each band is made up of musicians -- i.e., people struggling with their individual destinies and myriad relationships (the essence of all good fiction or non fiction). Having played in many bands myself, I could relate to many of the archetypal scenes described. But more than that it took a critical look at the phenomenon of rock, as well as being informative -- especially in regard to the club scene of New York City. A true delight! -- and the last page came all too soon.

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