Correspondents

A Novel

By: Tim Murphy

Narrated by: Necar Zadegan, Assaf Cohen

The world is Rita Khoury’s oyster. The bright and driven daughter of a Boston-area Irish Arab family that has risen over the generations from poor immigrants to part of the coastal elite, Rita grows up in a 1980s cultural mishmash. Corned beef and cabbage sit on the dinner table alongside stuffed grape leaves and tabouleh, all cooked by Rita’s mother, an Irish nurse who met her Lebanese surgeon husband while working at a hospital together. The unconventional yet close-knit family bonds over summers at the beach, wedding line dances, and a shared obsession with the Red Sox.

Rita charts herself an ambitious path through Harvard to one of the best newspapers in the country. She is posted in cosmopolitan Beirut and dates a handsome Palestinian would-be activist. But when she is assigned to cover the America-led invasion of Baghdad in 2003, she finds herself unprepared for the war zone. Her lifeline is her interpreter and fixer Nabil al-Jumaili, an equally restless young man whose dreams have been restricted by life in a deteriorating dictatorship, not to mention his own seemingly impossible desires. As the war tears Iraq apart, personal betrayal and the horrors of conflict force Rita and Nabil out of the country and into twisting, uncertain fates. What lies in wait will upend their lives forever, shattering their own notions of what they are entitled to in a grossly unjust world.

Epic in scope, by turns satirical and heartbreaking, and speaking sharply to America’s current moment, Correspondents is a whirlwind story about displacement from one’s own roots, the violence America promotes both abroad and at home, and the resilience that allows families to remake themselves and endure even the most shocking upheavals.

©2019 Tim Murphy (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Multidimensional

I enjoyed this novel very much. The storytelling and multiple characters are richly developed. The narration was excellent

Well worth the listen!

What I take with me from this book is the vivid portrayal of the characters. Being able to get a glimpse into the lives and emotions of people experiencing war and transition was eye opening. My wish is that no one would have to go through it in person. I appreciated the authors ability to bring the characters to life to the reader. The flow of the narrative was very well done. I would highly recommend this book.

So wonderful

Another perfect (and yet totally different) quilt of stories and relationships and ideas and history. MORE!

Loved it!

The author's descriptions of people, places, personalities during war, dictatorships, displacement, fear as well as the hopes , new beginnings, joy of intermingling cultures and languages kept me enthralled. I did not want the story to end!

Excellent and timely.

If you want a better understanding of the Middle East and the long history of Arabic people in this country check out this book. You may, as I did learn a lot!

Learning experience!

The author exposed me to subjects I am unfamiliar with and for that I am grateful. What the people in Iraq went thru along with the Syrians and Lebanese during the war while we watched on TV hearing a completely different point of view is heart breaking. Where is our humanity?
Another inside look I got thru listening to the Correspondents was a glimpse at a crowd shooter, his addiction to violent games and his families denial.
Georgia just had a 14 year old walk into a school and kill 4 people with 9 more hospitalized. The shooter’s family was in complete denial. Why do we allow secrets to overrule healthy emotional honesty in in our families?
Is it social media?
I do recommend Correspondents for others who are on a journey to read between the lines and become aware of how we can be a compassionate society to all people.

Keep Going, It Is Worth It

It took about 9 hours before I got into the book. Found the woman narrating the book extremely annoying, like she was smiling or winking as she spoke, child-like. Her Massachusetts accent was very annoying, sounded more like a strong New York accent to me, she should have dropped it completely. As the reading went on the accent did not improve but the narration did. Narration by the man was well done.

I think moving the chapters around would allowed for a faster connection to the characters, the book itself started with the wrong story, a silly beginning, like a romance novella to what becomes a moving book. I really liked Christodora by same author and Correspondents was written well enough that I decided to push through. Then finally the stories began to coalesce and have meaning.

Engaging story about difficult topics

I was completely drawn into the book by the complex stories of migration, loss, and the calamitous US invasion of Iraq. The sweeping historical arc of the book coupled with richly drawn characters pulled me into the lives of the protagonists. The narrators did a fabulous job of voicing the characters, most of whom spoke several languages. I highly recommend Correspondents!

This Book Brought Me To My Knees

I sobbed listening to parts of this book, it is so well written that I FELT the loss and pain of the characters. I do not ever remember reacting so strongly to a novel. Some of the events described here are horrendous and things I had not known before. War is ugly, brutal and all about money and power. Everyone suffers, there are, ultimately, no winners. Thank you, Tim Murphy, for this lesson in humanity.

The Arab American Dream

Immediately engrossed in the vibrant and often touching Khoury family saga, i was soon impressed how it segued and pitted the Americanness of that saga against the repressed history of the War in Iraq (which part 2 really brought back to life in full complexity). Part 3 sprawled out in many interesting directions, suggesting surprising ways nations/families/individuals might find redemption.

Only downside, I found the some of performed accents annoying and distracting.