Over There: From The Bronx to Baghdad [Hardcover]

Alan Feuer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 24, 2005

A very different kind of war memoir - a wry, sardonic and uncommonly funny account of one amateurish yet principled reporter's encounter with the absurdities of the second Iraq war Highly ambitious yet deeply ambivalent about the impending war, New York Times reporter Alan Feuer was sent to the Middle East to cover the US invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003. He was not alone: over 700 embedded news reporters planned on locking step with the military, and multitudes more, biding their time until Baghdad fell, would follow in their wake. In this gin-soaked yet scrupulously honest look at a reporter in wartime, Feuer describes this international media swarm, not to mention the local opportunists and unscrupulous profiteers, to exhilarating and profound effect. In these pages you'll meet a desert Donald Trump, the stiletto-heeled Rania (who'll bribe aborder guard or introduce you to the Queen - all for the right price) as well as the Times bureau chiefs who decide what, and how much of it, is fit to print. Clear-eyed and ever cognizant of the moral quicksand that surrounds him, Feuer recounts the interactions that form the news in stylish prose wedded to a wry, dry wit.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The media coverage of the war in Iraq is almost as much of an upheaval as the war itself in this engrossing memoir. New York Times reporter Feuer is yanked from the Bronx bureau and dropped into the Middle East just as the bombs start to fall on Baghdad. At the mercy both of events and high-handed editors, he struggles to make his way into Iraq and gain some perspective on the unfolding chaos that he can communicate to readers. Feuer's is a perceptive insider's account of the making of the news, filled with vivid sketches of fellow journalists and with the nuts-and-bolts details of stalking and seducing sources and piecing stories together from illegible notes in the face of near-impossible deadlines. It's also a trenchant, at times self-lacerating, critique of the media itself and its shallowness and isolation, its swarming of shell-shocked Iraqis, its drive to reduce human tragedy to poignant sound bites. Written in the third person, with a novelistic density and introspection, Feuer's muscular prose interrogates his own class anxieties and his longing for manhood and authentic experience, using them as a window into the dynamics that led America to war. The result is a fresh, personal take on the Iraqi adventure. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* In spring 2003, New York Times reporter Feuer was bustled off to the Middle East to cover the invasion of Iraq. There will likely be dozens, if not hundreds, of memoirs written by reporters who covered the war in Iraq. It's a safe bet, though, that this one will stand apart from most of the rest. To begin with, the author writes about himself in the third person, as This Reporter (or T.R.). The device suggests that the author is a mere observer, but make no mistake: T.R. is center stage; everything else--war, poverty, death, greed, ambition--is filtered through his own sensibilities and preconceptions. Feuer's prose sparkles; he is a nimble writer, witty and sharp-eyed (if S. J. Perelman were a contemporary war correspondent, he might sound a bit like Feuer). He is an admirer of the reportage of Hemingway and Mailer, and it shows: he focuses on the small details of his big story, on the people at least as much as on events. It's a down-and-dirty book, too, with plenty of grit and rough language, but that, of course, is part of the story, too. This is one war memoir that demands to be read. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 296 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint; 1St Edition edition (May 24, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582433275
• ISBN-13: 978-1582433271
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,803,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Boy is this guy full of himself, June 10, 2005

By 

E. Nolan - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Over There: From The Bronx to Baghdad (Hardcover)

I was hoping for an interesting behind the scenes view of the war in Iraq, but what I got was a book full of faux self-analysis and padding. Apparently Feuer realized that he didn't have enough actual material for a book, so he boosts his wordcount with constant Woody Allenish over-analyzation of his motives -- he is almost incapable of stating anything without considering why he states it, or how he feels about it. Add that to that goofy behavior like picking a fight for no particular reason in London and his dysfunctional avoidance relationship with his ostensible bosses, and you have to wonder even more than ever about what gets into the New York Times.

I give the book two stars because there are a few good anecdotes (in particular, the incident of the cookies, and the British officier's response to a lodging request) and because Fuer displays more insight into the real causes of the war than expected, but basically it's a mess. In the end, the author apparently decides, for no good reason, that he's going home and presents, as he does time after time, the home office a fait acompli and leaves without tying up any loose ends (for instance, what happened to Nadia?)

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do Not Waste Your Time, June 16, 2005

By 

Sharr (Greenwich, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Over There: From The Bronx to Baghdad (Hardcover)

This is nothing but poorly written drivel. A friend in publishing gave it to me. I am so glad I didn't pay for it. Amateur writing coupled with a huge ego. Bleah.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crossing lines rather than behind the lines, August 2, 2005

By 

Micki M. "scoop" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Over There: From The Bronx to Baghdad (Hardcover)

"Three journalists have died in Baghdad. . . American troops are killing journalists in a profoundly foreign country, under cover of a war being fought for savage, greed-crazed reasons that most of them couldn't explain or even understand."

This is a quote from the late "Gonzo Journalist" Hunter Thompson, and Alan Feuer's book captures the same sentiments. A reporter is nothing more than a voyeur, Thompson has said repeatedly, and in this New York Times reporter's case, he has peeped on the underworld of the Bronx Mafia by eavesdropping in Cafes on Arthur Avenue and peeped into the shanty tents of the homeless camped out under the Throgs Neck Bridge. Then he is sent to Bagdad - and thrust into the chaos and confusion of a war he barely understands himself. "Over There," is not a book about the ill-named "Operation Iraqi Freedom" because the author (TR) admittedly does not spend enough time in Iraq to label himself a war correspondent. It is instead a book about a journalist who is parachuted into a gritty warzone and finds himself confronting the same greedy motives he has found covering the mob, dirty CEOs, and hardscrabble, down-on-their luck thieves, back in NYC. It is also a look at the politics of the world's most respected paper and may prompt some high-brow readers who sniff they "only read the Times" to take the hardscrabble reporting of other newspapers just as seriously, if not more so.