Tell Them I Didn't Cry: A Young Journalist's Story of Joy, Loss, and Survival in Iraq (Hardcover)

~ (Author), David Ignatius (Foreword, Contributor)
Key Phrases: polling center, security contractors, car bombers, Abu Saif, Green Zone, Abu Ghraib (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jackie Spinner, a Washington Post staff writer, left the steady analytics of financial reporting for the terror-laden beat of Iraq in May 2004. In this memoir, she writes in simple yet descriptive language about the daily challenges and rewards of life in a war zone. Over the course of nine months, she carves her niche at the Baghdad bureau as den mother and human-interest reporter. She objectively reports on the struggles and aspirations of everyday Iraqis, the triumphs and failures of the military and the violence that traps her indoors most of the time—but the heart of this book is in her personal investment in the bureau's Iraqi staff. Spinner cooks weekly dinners for them, plays soccer in the hallways with them and teaches them English. Each chapter ends with reflections written by Jenny, her twin back home, an English professor, who belies her fears with chipper encouragement and dreads toy deliveries to her son because Jackie always orders them online after near-death experiences. Affable and earnest, Spinner made herself at home in war, creating a "family" despite cultural and language barriers, and hers is a unique perspective on living and reporting in Iraq. (Feb.)
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From The Washington Post

After I returned home from a recent reporting stint in Baghdad, a friend invited his 10-year-old son to ask me anything he wanted about Iraq. Immediately, the boy replied, "Why would you risk your life for a story?" Sometimes it takes a child to ask the sensible questions that adults won't. In her poignant Tell Them I Didn't Cry, Jackie Spinner, a Washington Post reporter first sent to Iraq in 2004, helps explain why we journalists get lured to the front -- and then have trouble going home. Spinner's fresh eyes, unlike those of more war-weathered correspondents, provide an honest look at what it means to cover a country that often appears to be coming apart at the seams. Without pretending to be a Middle East expert, Spinner focuses on her relationships with the Post's Iraqi staff, who become her family in Baghdad, and gauges how living under the constant threat of bombings and kidnappings is straining her ties with her real family back home. It is a tale she weaves well, bolstered by the moral, spiritual and literary support she gets from her twin sister, Jenny, an English professor at St. Joseph's University. Together they chart the strange inverse relationship that so often develops when covering a page-one war: As Spinner's career skyrockets, her health deteriorates. Even though she recognizes the toll it is taking, Spinner becomes unable to pull herself away: She's got Iraq and its people under her skin. This is the same kind of unbridled dedication to the story that kept my colleague Jill Carroll, the Christian Science Monitor freelance reporter kidnapped in Baghdad last month, working in Iraq nearly year-round since 2003. Spinner's willingness to lay bare her posting's side effects, from the droll to the devastating, sets her book apart. She also helps explain a breed that is no longer the rare bird it was in, say, Vietnam: the female war correspondent. Spinner captures our simultaneous urge to prove how unflappable we are -- she took the title Tell Them I Didn't Cry from her own shell-shocked but defiant words after escaping a terrifying kidnapping attempt -- and balances it against her unmistakably feminine impulses. She bakes cookies to win over suspicious policemen, forges intense friendships with her translators and just happens to be the person in the bureau who whips up fabulous Friday night dinners. None of which, of course, answers the 10-year-old's question. Why put ourselves in harm's way, only to have readers complain (as many of Spinner's did) that press coverage of Iraq is negative and unpatriotic? "I didn't become a journalist to serve my country," Spinner explains. "I became a journalist to serve the story." That means documenting the anguish of a country for which Americans now bear enormous responsibility. It means telling the truth and hoping that our Iraqi colleagues, many of them as fearful of insurgents today as they were of Saddam Hussein, will do the same. It means showing readers that the lives of Iraqis are just as important as ours. Spinner reminds us of all of these essentials, and then some. "If you're there, risking your life," she writes, "you want someone, anyone, to understand why you are there." Her fine book widens the circle of people who will. Ilene R. Prusher, Jerusalem bureau chief of the Christian Science Monitor, began covering Iraq during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Reviewed by Ilene R. Prusher
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (January 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074328853X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743288538
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #777,415 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great memoir!, January 20, 2006

By	C. S. Davis (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like a lot of people, I've been closely following the war in Iraq, and Tell Them I Didn't Cry brings a new and unique perspective the events in that country. Jackie Spinner's stories of her experiences in Iraq and the daily struggles she faces to report the news are emotionally compelling and highly captivating. In particular, I really enjoyed her descriptions of covering the battle in Fallujah and her stories about her friendship with Luma, one of her Iraqi colleagues--both of which helped me to understand why someone would choose to go to Iraq to bring the story back home to the rest of us.

One of the things that really makes this book stand out are the end-of-chapter essays written by the author's twin sister Jenny, in which she describes the struggles that she is facing on the home front struggling to come to terms with her sister's fears and her own. Together, Jackie and Jenny Spinner paint a vivid picture of what life in Iraq is really like for the journalists who are covering the story and for their families back home.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Must-Read" for journalism schools and everyone else!, February 13, 2006

By	Mark A. Sturgell "PDN Coach" (Decatur, Illinois USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

"Tell Them I Didn't Cry" is at once an extremely well-written, deeply personal story of "joy, loss and survival" in war and a journalistic feature report destined to be required reading at every journalism school in the country. Moreover, it is simply a great read.

I know these young women, and understand the tension between the personal essayist (Jenny, the stateside and empathetic English professor) and her adventurous twin sister (Jackie, the news reporter who takes increasingly bigger risks to get the truth about Iraq) that goes on throughout the book. This was part of the unique dynamic in their writing together (that, and our peek into the experience of being a twin). The result is, among other feats, a great book about journalistic objectivity (yes, despite one sour reviewer's remarks, it does exist).

Jackie's memoir is at once deeply personal yet constantly striving for the objective truth of the story of Iraq. Without any literal mention of "journalistic objectivity", the book provides a great lesson on the subject by providing such careful subjective telling of the story. Ultimately, any of the key author's personal politics or world-view is equalized by empathy, pathos and search for professional understanding of other perspectives. Perhaps the best examples of this striving for objective reporting include Jenny's description of the hateful eyes of the Iraqi woman who witnesses her near-kidnapping outside Abu Graib Prison (the frightful incident which gives the book its title) and her interpretation of the relationship between American soldiers and the people of Iraq.

Jackie constantly seeks to understand the story from every angle, from every perspective including her own; this is the very practice that produces human objectivity. With this, her first book, it is also the practice that makes this book a must read. I can't wait until she authors another one.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Common Ground, March 1, 2006

By	William Harper (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this memoir as a member of the military and as someone who knew Jackie and Jenny in high school: I was editor-in-chief of the high school newspaper that she mentioned early in the book. Although I have not talked to her in almost 20 years, I remembered her personality and interests and learned something about her and her desire to be in Iraq.
The reader is introduced to the many people who became part of her adventure in Iraq. I fell in love with Luma and then was heartbroken at what happened to her after she left the Washington Post. Omar was the loyal friend and protector, particularly during the Battle of Falluja. I enjoyed her many interactions with the cooks and felt like I was a part of her many Friday night dinners as I read the pages of this memoir.
Jackie best writes about her family's strain to understand why she needs to fulfill her duty in Iraq. A soldier trains and is motivated to protect our nation's values and welfare of people around the world. A journalist has a similar motivation and equal responsibility to our country. As I read 'Tell Them I Didn't Cry' I got a better sense of why our friends and families do not understand why we have to fulfill this obligation, despite knowing that our duty is necessary.
I am proud of her success as a journalist and that I was glad that I had a very small role to play in her career. Also, I have warned her to stay safe and always keep her guard up. Her and I certainly have different views on why we are in Iraq; however, I believe that there is common ground and belief in the job that is being accomplished.