Lucette Lagnado has written The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit about her father. It is really a family memoir about what happened during the 1960s and how she, her parents and her siblings had to flee Egypt and eventually settle, in exile, in America. I picked this up in a charity shop last June when I was in Scotland because it was a family memoir which I thought might be interesting – I was right.
The author’s father, Leon, was a Syrian Jew who came to Egypt before WW2 as a child. There was a large community of Jews in Cairo at this time and Leon became well known for his playboy lifestyle and his business activities. He played cards with the Egyptian king and mixed in the highest society. He was, however, also very religious and spent a lot of time in prayer and study of the scriptures. He married a much younger woman because of her beauty and, although he started a family, this didn’t change his lifestyle – the marriage was difficult and his wife found it hard to accept the way of life that he thought that she should live.
Following the Egyptian revolution in 1952 and the later Suez crisis life changed significantly for Jews in the country and most of them fled abroad, many to Israel. Eventually the family’s situation became untenable and they were forced to flee, first to France and the to America. They were unable to take any of the family’s wealth with them and so they became poor and life was very difficult for them as refugees. Leon became a tie salesman and the older children were forced to go to work rather than continue in education. The contrast between their previous life and the new reality was enormous and the author shows us how each member of her family adjusted, or failed to adjust, to the change.
This is a fascinating memoir, The author brings to life the vibrant and thriving community of Jews in Egypt between the wars with their traditions and history and their place in the wider Egyptian community. She then details the new life that the family were forced to live and what it was like to be a poor, Jewish, refugee in America in the 1960s. This is a part of history I didn’t know about before I read this book and the author’s evocation of the end of an era is very well done.
I have a small, but growing, collection of family memoirs and I shall add this one to the shelf (if I can find room). The edition I picked up in Scotland is an American paperback and is just slightly larger than most British books but it is in excellent condition and the text has lots of photos included which makes it easier to read and illuminates the story.
Anne Is Reading 