OUT OF IRAQ
Lewis Alsamari
£
7.99, Transworld
When Lewis Alsamari was denied an American visa to attend the premiere of United
93, the 2006 film in which he plays the lead hijacker of one of the planes
in the 9/11 attacks, the story became a headline-generator. The official line
was Alsamari simply applied for his visa too late, but suspicions took root
that he was refused entry because he’d been a conscripted member of the
Iraqi army - the same reason he was granted UK asylum in 1995 - and because
of a criminal conviction he picked up in his desperation to save his family.
Sarmed Alsamari (he changed his name to Lewis later on) fled Saddam Hussein's
iron-rod regime when his aptitude in English gained him a place in the country’s
notorious intelligence service, a perceived privilege he, quite rightly, saw
as a noose. Surviving being shot as he AWOL’d his army base, hounded
by wolves in the desert of the Jordanian-Iraq border and with the help of his
ever-loyal Uncle Saad, Alsamari made the perilous journey to a new life here.
Yet 13 years after he deserted the Iraqi army and 11 years after being granted
asylum, he was denied the opportunity of entering the US to watch as he was
presented onscreen to the world as the ultimate enemy of the West. It was an
insultingly fitting metaphor.
Alsamari's story is one that certainly deserves the memoir treatment. Although
timelines are a bit muddled in places, with definite dates and political events
thin on the ground, the political world isn’t what fires the focus here:
it’s an exhilarating and terrifying personal account of one man's escape
from one of the harshest dictatorships of the modern era. It’s a testament
both to the strength of the human spirit and to the extremes we'll push ourselves
to just to survive. Quite simply, life-affirming.
ASCENSION
David Lloyd
£
5.99, Pen Press
Here’s the deal. I’m in a bookshop meandering about when a man comes
over and asks if I like thrillers. Being a curmudgeonly old sod, I reply, “No”,
at which point said man looks a tad crestfallen and informs me he’s there
for a book signing of his new thriller. Therefore to atone for my terseness,
I thought I’d give it a go and I’m happy to report the safari from
my comfort zone was worth it.
Set in the classic Stateside small-town with a past, it’s where writer
Mike Fabien heads to research a book but ends up delving into the secrets and
lies that percolate beneath the surface of the perfect picket-fence façade
of the American Dream. Its strength is it manages to juggle a rising sense of
claustrophobia with choppy pacing which means the plot never sags or drags. I
usually avoid the thriller genre because I always think the characterisation
is on the cardboard cutout side, but here they’re real blood-and-bones,
believable creations. A gripping, compelling twister of a novel that should open
the mind of even the most thriller-averse.
OH DAD! A SEARCH FOR ROBERT MITCHUM
Lloyd Robson
£
7.99, Parthian
In an age where masculinity’s definition is more complex than ever, Cardiff
writer Lloyd Robson’s gritty attempts to reach the heart of late Hollywood
hedonist Robert Mitchum uncovers interesting perspective.
Succeeding a 2007 BBC Radio 4 programme of the same name, Oh Dad!… details
three years spent tracing early exploits of the actor once dubbed ‘the
hipster John Wayne’, criss-crossing the US’s eastern seaboard. Star
of movies from 1940s cowboy flicks to Cape Fear, what really defined Mitchum
was a reputation as a man’s man (and, as Robson points out, a woman’s
man): a macho, bar brawling, heavy-drinking drug user. He was, however, also
an artistic soul.
Robson’s road tripping and painfully honest prose draw tangential parallels
to Jack Kerouac and Beat Generation penmen. There are plenty of pleasingly uncompromising
turns of profane phrase along the way, fractiously interspersing quotes from
Mitchum and those who knew him best. Robson doesn’t gloss over Mitchum’s
imperfections, bleeding in a hefty dose of his own for measure. And while elevating
the actor to role model status, Robson concurrently slips in comparisons with
his own boorish father.
The rebellious Mitchum never won an Oscar. Perhaps as he once quipped of his
acting, “I follow the Smirnoff method,” that should be little surprise.
And though it doesn’t appear Robson gains any real closure for barely-contained
masculine confusion, the fulfilment of his own personal crusade is a suitably
drunken, self-loathing mess worth immersing yourself in.
Adam Kennedy
Jason Jones reads some riveting writes