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FREE THE ARROGANT YEARS PDF Lucette Matalon Lagnado | 416 pages | 09 Jan 2013 | HarperCollins Publishers Inc | 9780061803697 | English | New York, United States The Arrogant Years: One Girl's Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn by Lucette Lagnado From the women's section of the Shield of Young David synagogue to the antiseptic halls of Sloan-Kettering, from the alienating "high prep" of Vassar College to the gritty newsroom of The Arrogant Years New York Post, Lagnado's taut and moving memoir continues the story she started in the award-winning memoir of her family's exile from Egypt, "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit. Spurred on by the example of Emma Peel - the heroine of the TV show "The Avengers" - Lagnado decides to transgress the mechitza that separates the "solemn, purposeful" world of the men from the "gossipy, trivial, inconsequential world" of the women's section. I wanted to demolish our wooden enclosure, to smash it into a thousand pieces. The mechitza avenging is only partially successful, but it sets Lagnado down a path that leads her eventually to a successful career as reporter at the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. But "The Arrogant Years" is not a triumphalism narrative of assimilation and success. Between Brooklyn and her first forays into journalism, Lagnado struggles with The Arrogant Years, poverty and, at the height of her arrogant years, a diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease. Alongside her own, very American story of ambition, opportunity and challenges overcome, Lagnado juxtaposes the The Arrogant Years of her mother, Edith, from Cairo to Brooklyn, a story that takes us from the magnificent private library of the Egyptian Jewish notable Pasha Cattaui to the cataloging department of the Brooklyn Public Library. Exiled relatively late in life, Lagnado's mother and father spend much of their later years struggling to regain the elegance and social cohesion of their life in Cairo. Lagnado's mother has a particularly difficult time adapting to the relatively constrained circumstances in which she finds herself. Eventually, she takes matters into her own hands. Without consulting anyone in the family, Edith applies for a position in the library. Although she didn't have so much as a high school equivalency diploma, "she was able to draw on her vast store of knowledge and her literary sensibility to persuade the library to hire her practically on the spot. Toward the end of the book, the two stories become a single strand. As her mother's health begins to decline, Lagnado's life is subsumed with her fight against a The Arrogant Years health care system, lobbing "grenades into The Arrogant Years immense black The Arrogant Years of a system that seemed impervious to my attacks. We had, together, reached the The Arrogant Years section. Through longing, struggle, triumph and no small amount of avenging, The Arrogant Years two intermingled lives serve as a meditation on exile and assimilation, feminism and the enduring ties of family. E-mail comments to books sfchronicle. Top shopping picks. THE ARROGANT YEARS | Kirkus Reviews Cookies are used to provide, analyse and improve our services; provide chat tools; and show you relevant content on advertising. You can learn more about our use of cookies here. Are you happy to The Arrogant Years all cookies? Accept all Manage Cookies Cookie Preferences We use cookies and similar tools, including those used by approved third parties collectively, "cookies" for the purposes described below. You can learn more about The Arrogant Years we plus approved third parties use cookies and how to change your The Arrogant Years by visiting the Cookies notice. The choices you make here will apply to your interaction with this service on this device. 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Home Contact us Help Free delivery worldwide. Free delivery worldwide. Bestselling Series. Harry Potter. Popular Features. Home Learning. Description In the award-winning "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit", Lucette Lagnado offered a heartbreaking portrait of her father, Leon, a successful Cairo boulevardier forced to take flight with his family during the rise of the Nasser dictatorship, The Arrogant Years of her family's struggle to rebuild a new life in a new land. Lagnado then revisits her own early years in America-first, as a schoolgirl in Brooklyn's immigrant enclaves, where she dreams of becoming the fearless Mrs. Emma Peel of "The Avengers", and later, as an avenging reporter for some of The Arrogant Years adopted country's most prestigious newspapers. A stranger growing up in a strange land, Lagnado reveals how her adolescence was further complicated by cancer at sixteen. The devastating consequences would rob her of her "arrogant years" - the period defined by an overwhelming sense of possibility, invincibility, and confidence. Lagnado looks to the women sequestered behind the wooden screen at her childhood synagogue, to the young coeds at Vassar and Columbia in the s, to her own mother and the women of their past in Cairo, and reflects on their stories as she struggles to make sense of her own choices. Back cover copy In the follow-up to her beloved, The Arrogant Years The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, Lagnado tells the story of her mother, Edith, coming of age in a magical old Cairo of dusty alleyways and grand villas. Then Lagnado revisits her own years in America--as a schoolgirl in Brooklyn's immigrant The Arrogant Years, where she dreams of becoming the fearless Mrs. Emma Peel of The Avengers, coming of age in the turbulence of New York City's s, and, later, as an avenging reporter for some of America's most prestigious newspapers. Not only a searing account of strangers in a strange land, The Arrogant Years is a lasting meditation on exile and assimilation, feminism and the enduring ties of family. San Francisco Chronicle show more. Review quote "[E]nchanting It's risky to write a second memoir about the same time period, but in Lagnado's hands, the result feels natural and right. She skillfully reminds us that a single human The Arrogant Years is infinitely complex, that there are as many sides to a story as times it is told. Lagnado's, more painfully, but also more fully, than others. With a journalist's economy of style and an intuitive sense of story, The Arrogant Years weaves an account of The Arrogant Years own arrogant years The Arrogant Years writes with great affection and compassion for her mother, and she describes displacement and the urgency of memory. It is also a portrait of awe-inspiring caregiving by a loving daughter. Lagnado's done a fabulous job, again, of transporting us to a multi-ethnic Cairo that no longer exists. That alone The Arrogant Years worth the price of admission. The Arrogant Years is a lovely book, sad and hilarious by turn, written with love of life, The Arrogant Years an enormous affection for language. You will love it too. Lagnado is spellbinding and profoundly elucidating in this vividly detailed and far-reaching The Arrogant Years memoir of epic adversity and hard-won selfhood. Vivid and evocative Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz, The Arrogant Years has been translated into nearly a dozen foreign languages. Joining the Wall Street Journal inshe has received numerous awards and is currently a senior special writer and investigative reporter. Rating details. Book ratings by Goodreads. Goodreads is the world's largest site for readers with over 50 million reviews. We're featuring millions of their The Arrogant Years ratings on our book pages to help you find your new favourite book. Close X. Learn about new offers and get more deals by joining our newsletter. Sign up now. Follow us. Coronavirus delivery updates. NPR Choice page Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.