The Sand Cafe [Hardcover]

Neil MacFarquhar (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2006

MacFarquhar, the Cairo bureau chief for the New York Times, goes inside the private lives and professional mischief of war reporters waiting for the first Gulf War to begin in this bitingly funny first novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The frustrations and follies of contemporary war reporting are skewered in this jaundiced, juicy dispatch, datelined Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War. Sent to cover the story of a lifetime, wire service reporter Angus Dalziel finds himself with a view mainly of his hotel room. Harassed by Saudi officialdom, stifled and spoon-fed by U.S. Army press minders, Angus struggles to unearth real stories about military corruption, the repressive Saudi society America is defending and front-line reverses once the longed-for fighting begins. Watching his comrades veer between frenzy and torpor in their media bubble, Angus ponders the rot at the heart of journalism—especially the shallowness and vanity of television correspondents, one of whom uses up his tent mates' precious drinking water to shampoo his hair. First-time novelist and New York Times Cairo bureau chief MacFarquhar has this milieu down cold, though some of his tent poles are romantic clichés. A triangle between Angus, a cable-news babe and an egotistical producer yields much brooding over the transience of reporters' love lives, and the dichotomy between serious print journalists and TV airheads is a little facile. But media insiders and casual readers alike will relish his stock of witty observations and nasty anecdotes, while gleaning timely insights into the corruption of the news business. Michael Moore this isn't, but look for the book to serve as a kind of "physician, heal thyself" for the current wartime media, with corresponding talk show play. (Apr.)
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Review

"Few novels so honestly portray what reporting abroad is like in the era of the American colossus" Washington Post" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 375 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs (March 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586483684
• ISBN-13: 978-1586483685
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,505,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Becoming a Journalist or Dating One, April 8, 2006

By 

Bigelow (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sand Cafe (Hardcover)

This book should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to become a journalist or date one.
Imagine M.A.S.H. meets Sex in the City with a little Jon Stewart thrown into the mix. A crowd of mostly youthful, virulent, edgy thirty-somethings with fire in their bellies as well as their loins are stuck for seven months in a 190-room Saudi hotel desperately looking for the next big scoop and a little warmth, with very limited supplies of either available. They lie, they cheat, they broadcast the most intimate details of their sex lives with colleagues, they literally hit each other, and somehow they still manage to broadcast the news.
The relatively small number of excellent journalists heroically stand up to a bewildering gauntlet of obstacles from cut throat colleagues to a dominating Pentagon, which tries to assert complete control over what the American public is allowed to learn about the Gulf War.
The writing in The Sand Caf? is terrific, insightful and hilariously funny. I read every chance I got. There's a lot to learn from this tour guide about how the media actually covers a war or fails miserably in the attempt through laziness and incompetence. Aside from getting an appalling sense of how the news is made, I also learned much about the military, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Arab attitudes towards one another and the West, about fanatics and why they are tolerated, about Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, not to mention a bit of history. All in all it's a great orientation to an ever-important region.
I loved reading it, and so will you.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Sands of War, May 14, 2006

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sand Cafe (Hardcover)

Like Hemingway in THE FIFTH COLUMN, Neil MacFarquhar tells a hard-hitting and painful story about what happens when American and international writers are cooped up too long in a hotel outside a foreign war zone, where their every move is watched for signs of subversive activity. Angus is his own man, a stylish journalist who has the misfortune to fall for the one woman, Thea, who's wise to his ways. Thea's an associate producer for a major network who's being courted by Aaron, a powerful network producer who promises her a one way ticket out of the rat race.

In the background the 1991 US incursion into the Gulf rages while our troops struggle to support an oil-rich society in which there's an ice cream parlor with American ice cream, but a little sign says, "No woman may sit in this shop." The walls of the luxury hotel in which the press corps stays are so thin you can hear the man or woman in the next room having a drink, having sex, or arguing with relatives back at home over the phone. Just before the rise of the internet, US citizens depended on TV news as never before, and McFarquhar shows us how a united and greedy corporate mentality prevented us from finding out anything about the truth. It just wasn't profitable down at the Sand Cafe to do so.

As Angus's despair grows, his need for Thea becomes more intense. At first they were having just a light affair to while away the fugitive hours. But little by little her beauty and intelligence began to wear a hole in his heart. She admits that he's a good man, that the sex between them has been good for them both. And yet the tragic conundrum remains, as though Hemingway had been given a good talking to by Edith Wharton--sometimes the right man for a woman is the wrong man for a woman. Though Neil McFarquhar betrays the obvious flaws of a first-time novelist, and his book is roughly a third longer than it has any right to be, he has definite promise and his atmosphere is fresh as a desert oasis.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a thoroughly enjoyable read, May 28, 2006

By 

John E. Pomfret II "Author of "Chinese Le... (Washington) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Sand Cafe (Hardcover)

This is a great book written in sparse language about journalism, love, the desert and loneliness. It's also the closest thing most readers will ever get to experiencing what exactly goes on behind the scenes during the reporting of a war. I should know. I've covered 8 wars over the last 20 years. I'd recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the media, the egos involved and how the quest for face-time and the love of live shots distorts the news. I'd also recommend this for anyone who wants to be drawn into an intriguing story about a dashing guy looking for love in all the wrong places.