I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story

by Michael Hastings Narrated by Michael Hastings

Overview

At age twenty-five, Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek. He had at his disposal a little Hemingway romanticism and all the apparatus of a twenty-first-century reporter-cell phones, high-speed Internet access, digital video cameras, fixers, drivers, guards, and translators. In startling detail, he describes the chaos, the violence, the never-ending threats of bomb and mortar attacks, and the front lines that can be a half mile from the Green Zone-indeed, that can be anywhere. This is a new kind of war: private security companies follow their own rules, or lack thereof; soldiers in combat get instant messages from their girlfriends and families; and members of the Louisiana National Guard watch Katrina's decimation of their city on a TV in the barracks.



Back in New York, Hastings had fallen in love with Andi Parhamovich, a young idealist who worked for Air America. A year into their courtship, Andi followed Michael to Iraq, taking a job with the National Democratic Institute. Their war-zone romance is another window into life in Baghdad. They call each other pet names; they make plans for the future; they fight, usually because each is fearful for the other's safety; and they try to figure out how to get together, when it means putting bodyguards and drivers in jeopardy. Then Andi goes on a dangerous mission for her new employer-a meeting at the Iraqi Islamic Party headquarters that ends in catastrophe.



Searing, unflinching, and revelatory, I Lost My Love in Baghdad is both a raw, brave, brilliantly observed account of the war and a heartbreaking story of one life lost to it.

Editorial Reviews

Kimberly Johnson

Hastings's descriptions of events on the ground in Iraq are flat and impartial, delivered in just-the-facts style. But that only heightens his complete candor about his soul-shattering loss from Andi's death in a Baghdad gun battle.
—The Washington Post

Publishers Weekly

Hastings's heartbreaking tale of lost love amid the blood-soaked war zone that is modern-day Iraq, is a tale better realized in print than in audio, despite narration delivered by the author himself. Hastings's reading is hurried, unfolding at a panic-stricken, rushed pace that will have listeners backtracking throughout. As good a writer as Hastings is, he sounds uncomfortable and out of his element, struggling to get through the reading as fast as he can, which in turn loses the poignancy of his memoir. Simultaneous release with the Scribner hardcover. (May)

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Rachel Maddow

"A wrenching book... Some people loved the book and some people hated the book for it being so personal, so emotional, and angry, but that was really the whole point, and that's why he did. Michael was angry. He was also loving and thoughtful and constructive and brilliant."

From the Publisher

"There's a long tradition of young reporters going off to wars that test their journalism skills and their capacity to absorb emotional pain. Michael Hastings's pain was off the charts, but he manages to tell his story — and the tragic story of his girlfriend Andi — with dignity, humor, and grace. This is a searing personal drama and a raw, compelling account of the daily battle to cover the war in Iraq." — Andrew Nagorski, author of The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II

"Love and war always make for a potent brew, and in Michael Hastings's new book they infuse the horror in Iraq with an immediacy and a poignant sense of loss that are light-years away from the numbingly remote headlines we've been reading. This is what really happens when love, youth, and innocence descend into the abyss of death and devastation that is Iraq." — Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud and American Armageddon

"[A] powerful debut...a tragic love story with broad appeal married to an unflinching account of wartime violence and brutality." — Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“Outstanding … The world Hastings describes is choked with the craziness that characterizes all great war books.”
— The Sydney Morning Herald

“This is what really happens when love, youth, and innocence descend into the abyss of death and devastation that is Iraq.”
— Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud and American Armageddon

OCT/NOV 08 - AudioFile

Yes, there's an exciting story here. But the author is not the narrator to convince you of that. His delivery sounds disconnected from the drama of his memoir. He writes of how at age 25 he was sent by NEWSWEEK to cover the Iraq War. His girlfriend, Andi, joined him there and, later, was killed in a botched kidnapping. The story recounts their efforts to keep their love alive in the midst of violence and death. Their fear is extreme; their passion moving and intense. But Hastings's narration reflects none of these. His powerful dialogue is expressed in monotones so that he sounds almost indifferent as he tells of the raw events that ripped apart his life. S.W. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171241254
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	04/29/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

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