Customer Reviews

A Need to Know: The Clandestine History of a CIA Family

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the preface of this book Goodall explains that he writes it for his son, Nic, in order to answer questions he often asked about his grandparents. He also writes the book for his father and namesake, his mother, and for himself. As a reader and autobiographical writer, I can't help but feel that he also wrote the book for me, and others like me, who have an incomplete family narrative and needed a template to follow. He says he wrote the book "to help others find in [his] story a way to understand their own." I have.

Joining personal narrative, politics, memory and honesty, this amazing book reads as a conversation with the author as he invites the reader to join him on a journey that collapses time and offers a history lesson with a storyline. As a writer he helps me imagine it and see it. As a storyteller he helps me understand it. It is beautifully written!

This work is unique and enchanting. Carefully orchestrated and outlined, we follow Goodall as he traces a legacy that began before he was born. He uncovers secrets, discovers himself, and recovers his "narrative inheritance." I found myself reading in the midst of the noise and chaos of a busy airport and full household, yet not being distracted from the places, the people, the implications, the pain, and the story he tells. The story echoes in my head even now that I have read the last pages and returned to the beginning to read it again.

Goodall says his parents left him "a gift of understanding history in a very human way." He selflessly shares this gift with readers.

I highly recommend it!

Imagine your child starts asking questions about your family. Imagine you don't have any answers.

Imagine your father left you three things when he died: a Bible, a well-worn copy of The Great Gatsby, and a diary. Oh, and lots of questions.

Imagine you found out Dad was actually an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency.

Welcome to the beginning of Bud Goodall's dilemma. This book is Goodall's attempt to make sense of a childhood enmeshed in secrecy.

Like all good writers, Goodall doesn't tell us what is happening, he shows us. Wonderfully written, A Need to Know is a family story, a historical record, and a detective novel wrapped up into one. At times it is simultaneously tense, sorrowful, and enlightening. With the care of a researcher and the writing style of a novelist, Goodall enchants the reader, pushing and pulling us through the mazes, twists, turns and terrifying truth of living through a family slowly torn apart by secrets - all in the name of National Security during the years of the Cold War.

Just as in his previous works - Casing a Promised Land and Living the Rock n Roll Mystery - Goodall takes you inside. You see what he sees. You learn what he learns.

Goodall has done it again. Only this time he's done it better.

I was fortunate to obtain an advance copy of Dr. Goodall's book. The time period spanned corresponds to the evolution of American intelligence and counterintelligence. To intelligently overlay a personal history upon this era without too much emotion or editorialization is a unique talent that Dr. Goodall obviously posesses. To be able to write in a manner that flows from one chapter to the next is an ability that not all writers are capable of. Anyone who has an interest in this period of history will find this narrative enlightening from many perspectives.

Mr. Goodall should re-title the book "I'm against American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan" in order to reflect what's actually contained between the covers. He's certainly entitled to his opinion but it's dishonest to the reader to include repeated comments about a topic that is not tied to the title or the description on the back cover. I didn't read the book to hear his viewpoint on current military operations.
As a Marine, I am very insulted by his comment that his job as a professor is a form of national service. To serve, whether it is to the nation, state, or community, implies that the server assumes some sacrifice (comfort, time, money, personal safety). Professors, especially those who use their position and influence over students to pontificate on their view of the world from the comfort and safety of a college campus, do not bear any sacrifice. I would give him credit if he had, at least, made any trips to the hot spots around the world where his personal safety was threatened and his creature comforts reduced to the bare minimum in order to get an accurate perspective. Had he done so, I am quite certain, based on his arrogance, he would have stated so in the text. I give the book a one star rating only because he does paint a small picture of life in covert operations.