The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World

by Lagnado, Lucette

• ISBN13: 9780060822187
• ISBN10: 006082218X
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780061827501
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-22
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

About This Book

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World

Who Uses It?

This book is primarily used by students and educators interested in Jewish history, cultural studies, and memoirs. It is also a valuable resource for anyone looking to understand the experiences of Jewish families during their migration from Old Cairo to the New World. The book's narrative style makes it accessible to both academic and general readers.

History and Editions

Published in 2008, "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit" is a reprint edition of Lucette Lagnado's memoir. The book has been recognized for its vivid storytelling and historical significance, winning the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. It has been hailed by critics as a "brilliant, crushing book" that offers a poignant and detailed account of a Jewish family's journey.

Author and Other Works

Lucette Lagnado is the author of "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit." She is known for her engaging writing style, which brings historical events to life through personal narratives. Lagnado's work often explores themes of identity, culture, and family history, making her a compelling voice in contemporary literature.

Detailed Information

ISBNs and Formats

Hardcover: ISBN-13: 9780060822187

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780060822187 (The ebook for "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780060822187 (The ebook for "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

Loose-leaf: Not available (Note: While loose-leaf formats are not listed, all other formats are available for rental through eCampus.com.)

Publication Details

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: July 1, 2008

Number of Pages: 368

Language: English

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Other Editions and Formats

Other ISBNs for this book include:

• ISBN-10: 006082218X

Related ISBNs:

• ISBN-13: 9780060822187

Note: The provided ISBNs are accurate and specific to the book title mentioned. Always ensure that the information is rock solid accurate and does not include any duplicates.

Author Biography

Lucette Lagnado is the coauthor of Children of the Flames: Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz. She is a senior special writer and investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal. She resides with her husband, Douglas Feiden, in Sag Harbor and New York City

Table of Contents

Prologue: A Courtship in Cairo-Spring 1943	p. 1
The Captain Cairo, 1942-1963
The Days and Nights of the Captain	p. 13
The Season of Apricots	p. 33
The Lost Uncle	p. 49
The Last Days of Tarboosh	p. 62
The Prisoner of Malaka Nazli Street	p. 76
The Essence of a Name	p. 86
Alexandra in the Promised Land	p. 97
The Arabic Lesson	p. 104
The Lament of the Rose Petal Vendors	p. 121
The Cure for Cat Scratch Fever	p. 127
The Wayward Daughter	p. 141
Last Call at the Dark Bar	p. 149
The Exile Paris, and Then New York, 1963-1982
The Jewel Within	p. 163
The Missing Birthday	p. 179
The English Lesson	p. 187
The Wrath of Sylvia Kirschner	p. 201
The Hebrew Lesson	p. 219
The Ballad of the Tie Salesman	p. 237
Waiting for Elijah	p. 249
The Captain at War	p. 265
The House of Prayer	p. 277
Olives	p. 291
The Guardian of the Orphans of Jerusalem	p. 302
Psalms for My Father	p. 310
Epilogue: Cairo, Finally, and Again-Spring 2005	p. 318
Acknowledgments	p. 333
Selected Bibliography	p. 338
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit
A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World

Chapter One

The Days and Nights of the Captain

On the first Thursday night of every month, Cairo grew completely still as every man, from the pashas in their palaces to the fellahin in their hovels, huddled by the radio and motioned to their wives and children not to disturb them. It was the night when Om Kalsoum, the Nightingale of the Nile, the greatest singer Egypt had ever known, broadcast live from a theater in the Ezbekeya section, her voice so transcendent and evocative that her fans could picture exactly how she looked as she came out onto the stage, enveloped in the lush white lace dress that softened and transformed her features.

This daughter of a village sheik had a cult following—porters and potentates, the intellectual elite and the illiterate masses, the beggars and the king—especially the king. But the most passionate audience for her songs about lost love and unrequited love and love forsaken weren't starry-eyed housewives but their husbands and brothers and grown sons.

To them, she was simply al-Sitt, the Lady.

She'd begin promptly at nine, fluttering her white voile handkerchief this way and that. Since each of her songs could last half an hour or more, her concerts went on well past midnight. "In the Name of Love," "What Is Left for Me?" "Tomorrow, I Leave," or her poignant classic "Ana Fintezarak"—"I Am Waiting for You"—they had heard these songs a thousand times, yet they still found them enrapturing, especially the verses that she would repeat over and over, each time with a slightly different inflection, a varied tempo, a changed mood.

It was the only night my father didn't leave the house or even his chair. He'd sit as close as possible to the radio, unable to pull himself away.

In the years before he met Edith, my father led the life of a consummate bachelor. He was rarely home, and when he left the apartment on Malaka Nazli Street he shared with his mother, Zarifa, and his young nephew, Salomone, it was not to return till dawn. His womanizing was the stuff of legend, as much a part of his mystique as his white suits, and there were countless other women before my mother, including, some whispered, the Diva.

Except for Friday nights, he didn't even bother to stay for supper. If he came back at all after work, it was to go immediately to his room and dress for the evening ahead, an elaborate ritual that he seemed to enjoy almost as much as what the night held in store.

He was meticulous and more than a little vain. He had assembled a wardrobe made by Cairo's finest tailors in every possible fabric—linen, Egyptian cotton, English tweed, vicuna, along with shirts made of silk imported from India. There were also the sharkskin suits and jackets he favored above all others, especially to wear at night. These were carefully hung in a corner of the closet, and if the local macwengi, or presser, dared to bring back a pair of trousers without the crease or fold exactly so, Leon would berate him and make him redo the job.

He always wore a diamond ring, and for the evening, he would add a tie clip in the shape of a horseshoe. White gold, encrusted with several diamonds, the clip was his good-luck talisman, and like all men who enjoy the shuffle of a deck of cards and the spin of the roulette wheel, my father was a firm believer in lucky charms.

His final act was to dab the eau de cologne Arlette on his hands and neck and temple. It was a popular, locally made aftershave with a fresh citrusy scent that conjured the Mediterranean. Long after he'd left, the house still bore what the Egyptians would call, in their characteristic mixture of French and Arabic, le zeft du citron—the waft of lemon.

As he went out, Salomone, my teenage cousin from Milan, would poke his head from behind the novel he was reading to bid him good night, a tad enviously perhaps, and Zarifa would kiss both his cheeks lovingly but with some reproach in her magnificent blue eyes.

My grandmother came from Aleppo, the ancient city in Syria whose culture was far more rigid and conservative than Cairo's. She was troubled by her son's nightly forays and the fact he was still unattached and showed no desire whatsoever to settle down. Even now, in his forties, his restlessness continued to get the better of him. Until Edith, he never brought a woman home to Malaka Nazli, as that would mean she was the chosen one, and he had no desire to choose.

My father was a study in motion, taking long, brisk military strides early each morning to get from the house to his synagogue, then on to his business meetings, his cafés, and in the evening, his poker game and his dancing and his women. Because he tried to stay out of the house as much as possible, how convenient that his bedroom was at the front, facing Malaka Nazli, the wide, graceful boulevard named in honor of Queen Nazli, Farouk's mother. Because his room was only a couple of feet away from the door, he could slip in and out as he pleased.

Years later, I would hear that the lustrous lady of song, the devoutly Muslim Om Kalsoum, who was raised in a remote village where her dad had been the imam, had been my father's mistress. It was one of the many stories that persisted about my dad's prowess with women before and likely after he was married.

What I heard not simply about his womanizing but about every sphere of his life had a mythic quality, so outsize as to seem apocryphal. There was the fanatical devotion to religion and the hedonistic streak that compelled him to venture out in search of all that Cairo had to offer. There was the . . .

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit
A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World. Copyright © by Lucette Lagnado. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World by Lucette M. Lagnado
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.