I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story [Hardcover]

Michael Hastings (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

At age twenty-five, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for "Newsweek." He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a twenty-first-century reporter -- cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, translators. In startling detail, he describes the chaos, the violence, the never-ending threats of bomb and mortar attacks, the front lines that can be a half mile from the Green Zone, that can be anywhere. This is a new kind of war: private security companies follow their own rules or lack thereof; soldiers in combat get instant messages from their girlfriends and families; members of the Louisiana National Guard watch Katrina's decimation of their city on a TV in the barracks.

Back in New York, Hastings had fallen in love with Andi Parhamovich, a young idealist who worked for Air America. A year into their courtship, Andi followed Michael to Iraq, taking a job with the National Democratic Institute. Their war-zone romance is another window into life in Baghdad. They call each other pet names; they make plans for the future; they fight, usually because each is fearful for the other's safety; and they try to figure out how to get together, when it means putting bodyguards and drivers in jeopardy.Then Andi goes on a dangerous mission for her new employer -- a meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters that ends in catastrophe.

Searing, unflinching, and revelatory, "I Lost My Love in Baghdad" is both a raw, brave, brilliantly observed account of the war and a heartbreaking story of one life lost to it.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In his powerful debut, a young Newsweek reporter details two tumultuous years covering the war while falling in love with his long-distance girlfriend Andi, who would join him in Iraq only to be killed in a botched kidnapping. Largely concerned with describing on-the-ground conditions, Hastings reports with insight and grim humor from the front lines, embedded with soldiers in "a world with its own language and geography." Hastings handles the grisly particulars directly, the way he talks with the troops; the account is pocked with their tales, short bursts of heart-stopping sadness ("One American and at least fifteen Iraqi children killed") with no lesson or redemption indicated, and often without follow-up. The chaos is given shape by Hastings' romance with Andi, who remains in New York for a year before joining him in the Green Zone; dates, emails and instant messages provide a welcome reprieve, and drive the narrative toward its devestating conclusion like a tightly-plotted thriller. Like Mariane Pearl's A Mighty Heart, this is a tragic love story with broad appeal married to an unflinching account of wartime violence and brutality; as such, it should do even more than that bestseller to fill in a general audience on the dire state of Iraq. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In 2005, at the age of 25, Hastings was sent by Newsweek to cover the war in Iraq. Eventually, his girlfriend, Andi Parhamovich, joined him, working for the National Democratic Institute to try to create democratic institutions. The story of their moving and ultimately tragic relationship forms the core of Hasting’s account. The book begins and ends with the horrifying terror attack that killed Parhamovich. In between, Hastings describes how two young, almost hopelessly idealistic people try to nurture and maintain a relationship amid the daily carnage in Baghdad. This is no sappy love story. There is, of course, affection, but there is also conflict as both show the stress of constant fear for their personal safety. This is also a rather brutal story of a society ripping itself apart. Particularly after the March 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, sectarian violence rages with increasing savagery. No one is immune. Supposed noncombatants must travel in security convoys protected by private security firms. Parhamovich’s death is emotionally wrenching, but it seems almost predictable in this moving but deeply disturbing story. --Jay Freeman

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; 1st Scribner Hardcover Ed edition (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416560971
• ISBN-13: 978-1416560975
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,692 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Journalists
  • #7 in Books > History > Middle East > Iraq
  • #8 in Books > History > Military > Iraq War

More About the Author

Michael Hastings is a contributing editor to Rolling Stone. Over the past five years, he's regularly covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He started his career at Newsweek magazine in 2002, and was named the magazine's Baghdad correspondent in 2005. In 2008, he reported on the U.S. presidential elections for Newsweek. His work has appeared in GQ, The Washington Post, the L.A. Times, Slate, Salon, Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, and a number of other publications. In 2011, he was awarded the George Polk Award for magazine reporting for his story in Rolling Stone, "The Runaway General." In 2010, he was named one of Huffington Post's Game Changers of the year. In 2009, his story Obama's War, published in GQ, was selected for the Best American Political Writing 2009 anthology (Public Affairs, 2009). He is the author of I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story(Scribner, 2008) and The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan(Little Brown, 2011).

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, emotional story - a must read April 28, 2008

By W. Lockhart

Format:Hardcover

This truly amazing book tells two stories. The main story is of course the beautiful, modern love story between Michael and Andi. Everyone that has been in love can relate to the stories of their first couple dates, the playful yet intense arguments that you get into when first finding out about each other and the overall feeling of just wanting to be next to the person you love. The tragic end to their relationship literally made me break down and cry. It only took me a couple days to read most of the book, but it took an additional couple days just to read the last couple chapters. The final chapters are so overwhelming that I needed to stop reading every so often just to collect myself.

The second story is about the war in Iraq. I have read hundreds of books and stories about the current conflict and no other book so fully explains the war better than "I Lost My love In Baghdad." Everyone should read this book in order to fully appreciate what is happening on a day to day basis to our troops and the Iraqi people.

I fully recommend this book and encourage everyone to read it. You will not be able to put it down.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book, entertaining and tragic April 20, 2008

By Holbrook Webster

Format:Hardcover

Hastings' book is a phenomenal introduction to young love and life in Baghdad. Throughout his story, there is a unique perspective on Iraq and daily life there. I could sense the intensity and constant danger ubiquitous in the country. More importantly, this story really makes me regret not having the opportunity to ever meet Andi Parhamovich. He portrays her as a beautiful, noble, vibrant young woman and her loss feels tragic even to the reader.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome book June 9, 2008

By M. Hastings

Format:Hardcover

I teach high school history. This book gives an awesome over view of the war in Iraq. Giving heartfelt dipictions of the social consequences of war. I would encourage all to read.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Hastings is courageous beyond belief to share his grief with us. July 14, 2008

By dirtymc

Format:Hardcover

The tragedy of losing someone as close to you as your first love is unimaginably painfull. It is made even more grueling if it is under the conditions that his fiance passed away in. There are those reading this book that forget that message. I am not one of those individuals. Thank you for sharing your story with the world. Nothing could ever bring her back but maybe telling her story will make you whole.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A pair of star-crossed lovers April 1, 2008

By Cedar Creek Reader

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

From prologue to last page, "I Lost My Love in Baghdad" draws its strength not from the sense of tragedy and ambition of Macbeth but the sense of tragedy and tumult of Romeo and Juliet. The war in Iraq and its healing were the proximate causes which kept Michael Hastings for Newsweek and Andrea Parhamovich for the National Democratic Institute in Baghdad but the final cause was their young love.

There is a plague on both houses in Iraq and the feel for scorching heat, armed clashes in the day and night and the indispensability of hired security hasn't come through as strongly in other visions of the war. The tragedy of every war is confirmed here and the final pages envisage Andi's final moments in all the horror of immolation, but the last line could still have been Romeo's to Juliet, "Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet is crimson in thy lips and on thy cheeks. And death's pale flag is not advanced there"

Well worth the reading.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent January 26, 2010

By Denise Butkivich

Format:Hardcover

I just finished reading this book. It was excellent and a must read for EVERYONE, alot of lessons to be realized in this book. It descibes life in Iraq very realisticly. Of course people are always quick to judge and put others down, however this is his story and we must remember the Author has just and still going through the unthinkable, that FORTUNATLY most of us will never have to go through, losing the Love of our Life in a war zone. I have read many many books in my time, and have NEVER been touched by a book as I was by this one, I cried like a baby, extremly sad!!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Educatonal and Emotional August 6, 2009

By Mary Wittler

Format:Hardcover

Every once in a great while, I come across a book that makes me want to grab those I love most, look them in eye, and tell them that they've GOT to read this book. "I Lost My Love in Baghdad" is one of those books.

Michael's story is riveting, topical, and also very personal. It's a veritable balancing act between risk and reward. This book will stay with me for a very long while.

It helped me to understand what being there is really like. The fact that you woke up this morning doesn't mean that you will again tomorrow. I can't imagine living in that kind of stress every single day, or the toll it takes on the body as well as the psyche.

I have a new found respect for Journalists who are trying to do a good job while trying their best to survive. Seriously, "You have GOT to read this book."

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tragic Yet Not All Is Lost October 14, 2008

By Uncle Elmer

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was taken by the story in this book about Michael Hastings and Andi Parhamovich. This is a sad story of a pointless war, a reporter caught up in himself and a woman who did not fully understand the horrors of Iraq.

Michael deserves to be noted for his honesty. He writes freely about how he put his job as a reporter over his love of his girl, Andi. Over and over and over he picks his job over the woman who loves him. He leaves her for Iraq. He hardly sees her because he is so busy following stories when she gets a job in Iraq to be near her. He cuts short visits with her to go out on "embeds" with the military. He without question put his job ahead of his love.

Yet, Michael Hastings is not original in putting work ahead of love or family. We all do that at one time or another. His story is that he most likely had a more profound moral duty to examine the matter and decide one way or the other about Andi. He needed to either leave Iraq or fess up and tell her right now it's the job over you and that's that. Whatever the case this young and beautiful girl should not have been in a war zone on some romantic escapde. Michael owed her the duty to pick love over the job and get her back to the US or tell her that he couldn't get fully focused right now on her and that she needed to leave Iraq.

His inaction and allowing Andi to follow some love whim by taking a job with an inept effort of some organization in Iraq caused this beautiful soul to get caught up in a dangerous and hate filled place that took her life.

Andi died at the hands of crazed lunatics using God to kill someone they were insanely jealous of--a successful & lovely American who was free and had a lot that these killers did not.... She was clearly set up by the people she was trying to help with this ineffective effort by the group she worked for in Iraq.

Andi's mistakes were not uncommon in life--people do all kinds of things for love--it's that the type of a mistake in her case had lethal consequences.

Michael was honest in his shortcomings in regard to Andi which were many. That is to be respected. In his own way he will have to come to terms in how he let her down and then live the rest of his life. Read more ›