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The Distance Between Us

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"The Distance Between Us" is an extraordinarily powerful, beautifully crafted novel. Masha Hamilton's prose is, at times, luminescent and lyrical, and at others, spare and almost brutal in its honesty. She paints here a poignant portrait of a woman facing a major crossroad in her life which will change her forever. This novel is more a sensitive psychological study than a book with an action driven plot.

Catherine (Caddie) Blair is an American journalist stationed in Jerusalem, who has been covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years. She prizes her professional detachment and shies away from anything that smacks of sentimentality. It is important to keep her emotions under wraps in both her writing and in her personal life. "Reflect the story; don't absorb it," is her creed, "because if you allow yourself to feel the full force of sorrows and horrors, you will succumb to them."

On a trip to Lebanon for an important interview, Caddie's Land Rover is ambushed and her lover, Marcus, is killed. His death stuns her; shakes her to the core. She, who has covered so many battles, so much violence, finds herself musing at the many colors of a loved one's blood. Accustomed to holding her emotions in check, she doesn't know what to do with the onslaught of feelings that threaten to overpower her. For the first time that she can remember her reporter's gift of perfect recall is gone, as is her ability to be a cautious observer. She fears that after this life-altering event, she will never be "restored to even an accepted facsimile of what she was before."

Ordered back to New York for R&R by her editor, Caddie persuades him to let her remain longer in Jerusalem under the guise of writing a feature story on the "effects of violence." Overwhelmed with rage, a need for revenge, survivor's guilt, (Would Marcus have accompanied her if she hadn't asked him to do the photography for her article?), Caddie searches for a response to the murder. She considers revenge, retaliation, among other possible solutions. Compelled to act, she needs to do something that will bring her peace and allow her to move on with her life. And she longs to write something to compensate for all the barriers which sometimes got in the way of her stories. "A piece that will show intimately how violence shreds sleep and appetite and memory, disfiguring those it leaves behind. A story that will get close enough to give violence a human face."

Ms. Hamilton brings her characters to life on these pages, especially Caddie. She is developed lovingly, and the changes she makes in the novel's 279 pages are intense and deeply felt. The novel's secondary characters are phenomenal, real originals - from interfering, gossipy Ya'el to Mr. Gruizin, who paints a red stripe on the mailbox of any out-of-town neighbor - to ensure their healthy return. There's mad Anya, who shouts and whispers her prophecies from street corners, Mrs. Weizman, always ready with her chicken soup to feed Caddie, and Goronsky, the man who suddenly enters Caddie's life and helps her define her ethical limits. The characters have one principal commonality - they have all been scarred and altered by violence.

The author's vivid descriptions of Jerusalem brings that city to life. Her landscapes, images of light refracting against Jerusalem stone, the contradictory mix of the city`s inhabitants, the frenzy of everyday activity and the silence of Shabbat, evoke a timelessness and enrich the novel tremendously. This is a rare book - a real find. Highly recommended!

Masha Hamilton has actually worked for The Associated Press as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and has covered the Intifada. This firsthand experience is evident in the story's detailed development.
JANA KRAUS

Foreign Correspondent Masha Hamilton has done what few journalists can do, which is to write a story that is both literary and almost media-like it its intensity. She brings the sites, sounds, and smells of the Middle East to life, while also managing to convey the horror and awfulness of war. The author weaves an evocative tale of lost love, and sets it against some of the most startling descriptions of violence and brutality that one is ever likely to read.

This tale of terror and emotional woe is told through the eyes of Caddie Blair, an American newspaper reporter who seemingly cannot get enough of the violence. The novel opens when Caddie and Marcus, her photojournalist boyfriend are scouting the border between Israel and Lebanon. Caddie is based in Jerusalem, but she persuades Marcus to accompany her to Lebanon because she has been promised an interview with a Lebanese crime king, a Princeton University-educated terrorist who might disclose new information about the course of the endless Arab-Israeli conflict.

When their land rover is ambushed and Marcus dies in her arms, Caddie spins into an emotional whirlpool of anger, frustration and loss. On the verge of insanity and absolutely devastated, Caddie, refuses a generous offer from her newspaper to accept a position in New York City. Instead, she becomes even more addicted to the violence, wanting to be as close to it as possible and hoping to write a series of articles on the ultimate meaning behind this wasted conflict. She also steadily becomes obsessed with finding a way to hunt down Marcus' murderers.

She deliberately goes out of the way to pursue clashes, from being caught up in a street conflict between the Israeli militia and the Arab street boys throwing rocks, to being smuggled into the occupied territories in order to see assassinations take place first hand, Caddie becomes consumed by what she sees before her. For her, the rush is unmatchable. Far better than drugs or alcohol - "the talcum dirt under her knees, the suspended smoke, the wide-eyed child, and the percussion of her own heart."

But Caddie, also carries rage in her heart, and is constantly haunted by the memory of Marcus. She loved him dearly, and as she dreams of him, and sadly looks through the portfolio of his perceptive, prize-winning photographs, she finds herself musing without purpose, careening through memories, dallying longer among the dead than the living. It doesn't really matter that pieces of her have scattered. But when Caddie begins a passionate affair with Goronski, an enigmatic Russian operative, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and Caddie thinks of him as her ticket to the discovery of Marcus' killers.

Goronski, with a kind of omniscient presence, overwhelms Caddie with his slick sexiness and his inexplicable ability to know whom everybody is on both sides of the conflict. But Caddie is weary of him, as he seems to be somehow in the middle of all the carnage without dirtying his own hands. She doesn't totally trust him, but she also can't resist him, so all she's left with is a blur, and after losing Marcus - her most trusted friend - she becomes the sidelined cautious observer - "now so much a part, that she cannot locate apart"

Hamilton - with the objectivity of a journalist's eye - beautifully encapsulates and contrasts the personal cost of war with the machinations of political expediency, without ever taking sides or passing judgment. She manages to convey the whole unstable region as a kind of tapestry, tightly woven with ideology and religion. Where violence shreds sleep and appetite and memory, disfiguring those it leaves behind. Where, as one character says: "this isn't an easy life, but you meet it head on. You marry, have kids, and try, against the odds, to make a place for yourself." Mike Leonard March 05.

Catherine Blair, who goes by Caddie, is a dedicated journalist assigned to the war-torn middle east. She takes her job very seriously, maintaining a professional's detachment and objectiveness.

She allows herself to get close to one colleague, Marcus. Only physically close, however, as they differ at times on the directions the stories they are working on should take.

Their schedule is grueling, the conditions insufferable and what they witness daily is more than the average person can stand. Almost all correspondents can only take six months on duty before needing to "recoup" on home soil. But Caddie feels an honest affinity for the lands and their people and finds the idea that she is merely the eyes and ears for the people back home a little disturbing.

The dedication page says it all:

"For Kevin Carter and journalists everywhere who put their bodies and their souls on the line to cover war."

This book is about the horrors that the people who live in war zones must endure at the hands of leaders consumed with hate and lustful for power. But it's also about one woman's journey of self-discovery, traversing her inner heart and mind which are as desolate as the lands she covers. Haunted by memories and aided by photographic diaries, she is able to put down her other colleagues's jeers about her "constant need for bloodletting" and make her stand.

This type of subject is hard to write about and is usually tackled by men via spy or 'hard-hitting journalism' genres. So it is unusual to see women writers venturing into this territory.

Written in a 'you-are-there' style, Hamilton presents this story in a surrealistic form - giving you the perspective that you are witnessing the events as they happen, but are seeing everything from a distance...the distance between you.

Masha Hamilton does not flinch when she writes. THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US is the story of an American journalist, Caddie Blair, who finds herself suddenly bereft, when her photojournalist lover is killed in an ambush. Caddie refuses to leave Jerusalem, preferring to cover the violence around her. She also begins to understand it in a visceral way, as she moves in so close to "the story" akin to a moth to a flame. This is a powerful, wrenching book, with language that is spare, poetic, and beautiful.

As a journalist, author Masha Hamilton has covered the world's hot spots. Obviously this book went close to the bone. Read it. You will never forget it.

Masha Hamilton has brought to life a part of the world most of us know only through headlines. The Middle East is nothing if not an inexplicable testament to the horror people can bring to one another, but Ms. Hamilton has managed to bring a part of that world to life with style, grace, and a profound understanding of what it means to live there. Also, as a former journalist who covered that region, she allows us to look into the soul of those adrenalin junkies known as war correspondents.

Her characters, her sense of place, her ability to create tension and resolution are deeply powerful, perhaps made more so by her disciplined, tightly controlled writing that allows for no more--and no less--than is required to make her point. As all great writers, she leaves us wanting more. It was a book I hated to finish.

Just as she did in her highly acclaimed novel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, foreign correspondent Masha Hamilton once again closes the distance between us and those we see depicted at the top of the news. In Caddie Blair, Ms. Hamilton has created a character as conflicted as the region she covers, the Middle East...and that's a good thing!

As a journalist covering the Middle East conflict, Caddie Blair is in the thick of the action, tracking the everyday violence around her. Convinced that her attachment to her lover, Marcus, is void of real commitment, Caddie assumes his compliance with her assessment. Before they have a chance to discuss their relationship, Marcus, Caddie and two others cross the border of Lebanon in pursuit of an interview with a Lebanese crime king. On that impulsive journey, Marcus is killed in an ambush. In this embattled land, death lurks but a step behind.

The territory of grief and loss is as unfamiliar to Caddie as the terrain of war is familiar. Suddenly, there is no Marcus to balance her stories with his inspiring photographs, no more small moments of peace and intimacy in an island of unpredictable horrors. Living on the razor's edge of danger has lost its appeal, rendering Caddie more tentative in her work. Refusing to take time off as ordered, Caddie is trapped in the memory of Marcus, with his penchant for isolating the images of the eight and ten-year olds, whose faces tell the real story of the conflict. Struggling to remain objective, Caddie carries a rage in her heart, a need to avenge the loss of the man who humanized the inhuman in his sensitive, prize-winning photographs.

The crux of the novel is Caddie's inability to cope with her grief and process the resulting anger. Haunted by that fateful day in Lebanon, Caddie is in flight, desperate for emotional purchase: "the turbulence of some gigantic machine careening forward at reckless, pointless speed". She has carved a niche for herself, an identity, objective journalist. Ultimately, what Caddie will realize is as familiar as her own breathing: that while these are her stories, to the people living this nightmare, these are their lives. When she meets an enigmatic Russian with his own sad tale, Caddie forges an emotional bond that allows her to confront the dark roots of her own psyche, though at first she confuses the Russian with Marcus' nascent goodness.

Author Masha Hamilton (Staircase of a Thousand Steps), a foreign correspondent herself for ten years, speaks the language of a terrain too long littered with the corpses of Palestinians and Israeli's, arguably one of the most significant crises of this generation. Hamilton is unflinching in the face of such violence, providing searing descriptions of what humans do to each other in the name of God, as her protagonist is thrust into a world of absolutes, where lives are crushed with impunity. "She has, after all, a survivor's pact with this land: both are tainted now, but both will endure." Luan Gaines/2005.

Masha Hamilton captures the intense spirit and courage of Caddie Blair, an American reporter covering the Middle East (like Hamilton herself for ten years) whose lover, a fellow journalist, dies in a roadside bomb while on an assignment in Lebanon. Through Caddie's palpable grief, Hamilton explores the human hunger for revenge that fuels the back-and-forth violence in the West Bank. Caddie considers her boss's offer to leave Jerusalem in favor of a safe job in New York, and searches for relief and understanding in her former lover's collage-like photo journals. Will she ever get her groove back as a detached reporter?

Hamilton makes you admire the courage of this female journalist. In fact, the book is dedicated to "Kevin Carter and journalists everywhere who put their bodies and their souls on the line to cover war." Near the end of the book, in the middle of a violent scene, Caddie has images of her lover Marcus (and Kevin Carter - an unidentified character) flash in her head. I would love to ask Hamilton who Carter is and what the role he played in inspiring this story. Hamilton paints a gorgeous, tender tribute to Jerusalem and its horrifying, inescapable violence.

The writing is fantastic, but the plot is disturbing when Caddie goes on excursions into the West Bank in order to participate in revenge against Arabs. But then again, maybe that's the point of the book. I don't understand the desire for revenge, and I was uncomfortable with Caddie's state of mind. Americans try to broker peace in the Middle East, but as outsiders, will we ever truly understand the motivations of the actors? We need to listen before we can demand peace. After all, "listening is a form of accepting." (Stella Terrill Mann). Caddie's new ability to listen, and not merely report, seems like a small beacon of hope for a tragic part of the world.

Great book, but be prepared to be disturbed.

Also by this author: The Camel Bookmobile (2007)

This book reads like a first rate thriller--the plot is engrossing, the action fast-paced, and the writing is spare and evocative. The deeper message, about commitment and redemption, builds almost imperceptibly, so that the profoundly moving denouement feels both revelatory and inevitable.

Hamilton offers only stock characters & stereotypical incidents. This skims the surfaces but gives little sense of lived experience, in spite of the author's background. Though filled with equal measures of sex and violence, the novel simply fails to engage the reader, in spite of the promising early pages.
Readers seeking a richly written, thoroughly gripping and truly authentic portrait of the Middle East, should turn to Robert Stone's wonderful novel "Damascus Gate" instead.