kirkusreviews.com
The seemingly interminable struggle
between Palestinians and Israelis serves as the backdrop to this tale of the
seizure of the Achille Lauro cruise
ship in 1985.
In this gripping account, former Wall Street Journal and New York Times reporter and critic Salamon
(Wendy
and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein, 2011,
etc.) adeptly reveals the parallel lives of the well-educated and privileged wife
of the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front and the successful, New York
City–bred daughters of abductees Marilyn and Leon Klinghoffer. The author
intersperses the domestic dramas and mundane daily routines of both families
with the plotting and execution of the terrorist act. Salamon’s storytelling
skills imbue this terrible event with personal, relatable dimensions. She
describes how the terrorists demanded that Syrian authorities negotiate with
Israel to release Palestinian prisoners and transport the hijackers to a
friendly Arab state that would provide them asylum. Aboard the ship, the hostages’
conflicting emotions of dread and a need to humanize their captors during the
siege is personified by Marilyn. “The young man covered [wheelchair-bound] Leon
with a blanket and handed him a cigarette; Marilyn returned the kindness with a
hug and a grateful kiss,” writes the author. “ ‘They seemed so middle class,’
she thought, ‘like people you could relate to.’ ” She was proven tragically
wrong, however, when they killed Leon and dumped his body into the ocean. Salamon’s
account of the strategizing of Palestinian, Israeli, and American diplomats, followed
by the soldiers’ captures and subsequent escapes, are as engaging as a spy
novel. She extensively recounts the trials of the hijackers and offers lengthy
aftermaths for the families. However, her similar attention to the
international productions of the opera The
Death of Klinghoffer are overlong and do not warrant the same focus.
An engrossing narrative of a
notorious act of terror.
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