The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (P.S.) (Paperback)

~ Lucette Lagnado (Author)
Key Phrases: white sharkskin suit, red prayer book, Malaka Nazli, New York, Cat Scratch Fever (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

This memoir of an Egyptian Jewish family’s gradual ruin is told without melodrama by its youngest survivor, now a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Lagnado’s story hinges on her father, "the Captain," who cut a dashing figure in mid-century Cairo, consorting with British officers and Egyptian royalty at French cafés while his family, neglected, stayed home. At first refusing to join the tide of Jews fleeing Egypt under the Nasser regime, the Captain finally yields, in 1963, when the family escapes to Paris and then Brooklyn. Deprived of wealth, status, and any means of coping, Lagnado’s father fades, but he never loses his air of chivalry, manifested in a regular outflow of tiny checks to charitable causes—orphanages, vocational schools, and dowry funds for poor girls—overseas. "As if the Captain were capable of rescuing anyone," his daughter writes.
Copyright © 2007 Click here to subscribe to The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Lagnado's captivating account of her family's life in cosmopolitan Cairo and painful relocation to America centers on her beloved father. Dashing man-about-town Leon Lagnado, who kept to his carousing ways even after marrying a beautiful women 22 years his junior, was enraptured at the age of 55 by the author, his fourth child; affectionately called Loulou, she became her father's companion, even at temple services and the Nile Hilton bar. But the Suez war in 1956 and the Nasser regime's cultural holocaust began forcing Jews from their native Egypt. Leon's injury in a fall and Loulou's mysterious illness (first diagnosed as cat scratch fever, eventually found to be something far worse) delayed the Lagnados' departure until 1963, when they arrived in New York with $212, the maximum they were allowed to take out of Egypt; and Leon, once a prosperous, independent businessman and investor, was reduced to selling ties on the street. In Lagnado's accomplished hands, this personal account illuminates its places and times, providing indelible individual portraits and illustrating the difficulty of assimilation. An exceptional memoir. Leber, Michele
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006082218X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060822187
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #4,369 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Demography
  #1 in	Books > Nonfiction > Law > Administrative Law > Emigration & Immigration
  #2 in	Books > Nonfiction > Current Events > Civil Rights & Liberties

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly beautiful, June 28, 2007

By	Peter Bloch (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (Hardcover)

I was at that reading also, and purchased another copy of the book (my third!) for my daughter. Lagnado's story of her family's incredible history in Egypt and then the heartbreaking exile they endured, ending in Brooklyn where her father, old and seemingly defeated, probably saves her life with one last almost magical invocation of his old powers of persuasion is inspiring and tragic at once. After reading this beautiful book, it's clear where Lagnado's passion as an investigative reporter to expose corruption and the indignities we too often heap upon the elderly was born.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Griping Family Sage and wonderful slice of history, July 10, 2007

By	J. Smart (New Rochelle, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (Hardcover)

The Man in the White Sharkskin suite is a stunning work, in it's emotional depth against a period of history I knew little about. The author/narrator tells the story of her family, particularly her father, as they thrive in Egypt under King Farouk, then, literally overnight, lose their material possisions, family and promience but not their humanity and dignity when Nassar comes to power. Their 'before' life was vibrant and full materially, but emotionally fraught with tensions of all sort especially between the husband, Leon and the wife, Edith. The author uses the point of view of the youngest member of the family, Loulou who can barely understand what's happening but acts bravely for her father's sake and for his love. The author writes beautifully, and with such poignancy, but never with self pity or malicious anger regarding the family's fall. By the time the family arrives in America, they are completely lost as they stand on the dock watching the big cars go down the West Side Highway. The great symbol of American prosperity, yet the cars and the dream they represent pass the family by. They never regain the life they longed for, except in the success of Loulou who becomes an award winning journalist and now author. I feel that Leon would be thrilled that, against his advice to this daughter to find a 'little job', she found her calling and restored the family legacy and told the greater story, through the Lagnado saga, of the history of Egyptian Jews of that time.

A wonderful read.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars beautiful, unique, and deeply touching, September 6, 2007

By	Stephanie Cowell (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (Hardcover)

There are very few memoirs as deep and beautiful, as compassionate and tender, as this one of a young girl born to a loving, devout, but old world Jewish patriarch in the last decades of elegant Cairo in the 1950's. Shortly after all the Jews would flee and be scattered in exile: from an elegant, ordered life, they would face hunger and poverty first in Paris and then in New York where the father, now old and sick, would try to reestablish himself in a business and the children would find their own way in this strange new country.

An extraordinary memoir. There are only a few I have read ever which come near it.