The Arrogant Years: One Girl's Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn - Softcover

Lagnado, Lucette

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061803693 ISBN 13: 9780061803697

Publisher: Ecco, 2013

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.

About this title

Product Description:

In the follow-up to her beloved, bestselling The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, Lagnado tells the story of her mother, Edith, coming of age in a magical old Cairo of dusty alleyways and grand villas. Then Lagnado revisits her own years in America?as a schoolgirl in Brooklyn's immigrant enclaves, where she dreams of becoming the fearless Mrs. Emma Peel of The Avengers, coming of age in the turbulence of New York City's 1970s, and, later, as an "avenging" reporter for some of America's most prestigious newspapers. Not only a searing account of strangers in a strange land, The Arrogant Years is a lasting "meditation on exile and assimilation, feminism and the enduring ties of family." (San Francisco Chronicle)

Review:

“[E]nchanting...It’s risky to write a second memoir about the same time period, but in Lagnado’s 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)

“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. Lagnado’s, more painfully, but also more fully, than others.” (New York Times)

“[A] taut and moving memoir...With a journalist’s 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)

“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)

“Lagnado is at her best when she plumbs her own psyche to sort out her life’s ups and downs...a rewarding journey.” (Washington Post)

“[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)

“[Lagnado makes] the vital point that there can be many perspectives on the same story....affecting...[an] affectionate, engaging memoir.” (Boston Globe)

“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 family—as a budding contrarian in her alien New World.” (Jewish Woman Magazine, Book of the Month)

“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)

“Weaves together the life stories of several women in a way that will resonate with readers of any ethnicity...Lagnado’s 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)

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0061803693
• ISBN 13: 9780061803697
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416