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OFF THE RADAR

Name: OFF THE RADAR
Author: Cyrus Copeland
ISBN: 978-0-399-15850-6

A FATHER’S SECRET, A MOTHER’S HEROISM, AND A SON’S QUEST

by Cyrus Copeland ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 24, 2015

Both a gripping personal story and an insightful historical-cultural study.

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Copeland (editor: A Wonderful Life: 50 Eulogies to Lift the Spirit, 2006, etc.) explores the mystery surrounding his father’s controversial persecution in revolutionary-era Iran.

The author attempts to reclaim his family’s pre-revolutionary past and uncover the mysterious life and death of his father, American Max Copeland, who was married to (and eventually represented by) the first female lawyer of the Islamic Republic. “I would come to understand that I am the by-product of the two most ethnocentric cultures on the face of the earth,” Copeland writes. “Cultures tend to perceive the world through their own unique lenses, of course, but Iran and America are fairly exceptional in this regard.” In a narrative that alternates among the differing perspectives of his father, his mother, Shahin, and himself, Copeland paints a lucid portrait of chaotic late-1970s Tehran, the last days of the shah’s reign and the beginnings of a repressive Islamic state. During the early days of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Copeland’s father was caught illegally selling radar equipment for Westinghouse, which, like most other Western-run companies, was shutting down and liquidating their Iranian assets subsequent to the Islamic takeover in 1979. Max was accused of spying for the CIA and was tried in an Islamic court for trading with the enemy, among other things. Having no way to defend himself in the courtroom, Shahin was permitted to take up his case in court. Although Copeland doesn’t solve any big mysteries surrounding his father’s life and alleged connections to the CIA, he does concoct an engaging narrative, however fragmented, that highlights his family’s resilience in the face of challenging, unforeseen political circumstances. Along the way, the author’s personal immersion in his family’s history helps him come to terms with his Iranian heritage and allows him to build a much-needed figurative bridge between two very different but equally misunderstood cultures.

Both a gripping personal story and an insightful historical-cultural study.

Pub Date: March 24, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-399-15850-6

Page Count: 356

Publisher: Blue Rider Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2015

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | POLITICAL & ROYALTY | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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NIGHT

by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...

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Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.

He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.

The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the sphere of suffering shared, and in this case extended to the death march itself, there is no spiritual or emotional legacy here to offset any reader reluctance.