The Sand Cafe
A Novel
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Dhahran Palace Hotel, Saudi Arabia, 1991. The US forces are massing on the border with Iraq, preparing to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Men and material are arriving daily, helicopters and armor are training in the desert sand. There are rumors of Scud missiles, talk of the possibility of chemical attack, but in fact, nothing is really happening. With no story to report, the press is getting restive. The Sand Caf' is a satire of modern war reporting that mercilessly exposes the life of the foreign correspondent: endless scurrying trips in pursuit of a really big story, gathering frustration, brewing jealousy directed towards other reporters, especially those from better financed TV networks, and the stale smell of damp rot that comes from a combination of leaking air-conditioning and wretched carpeting in the hotel where the entire bedraggled press corps is housed. Boredom massages idle thoughts into wild excesses, even in a country that officially bans the sale of alcohol. Neil MacFarquhar, a veteran of the Middle East foreign press corps, has written a woundingly witty black comedy of those who bring us news from the front lines, exposing their vanities, rivalries and petty distractions. Love, lust for fame and the magnificent gilded hypocrisy of the regime in Saudi make this novel as revealing as it is compelling.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The frustrations and follies of contemporary war reporting are skewered in this jaundiced, juicy dispatch, datelined Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War. Sent to cover the story of a lifetime, wire service reporter Angus Dalziel finds himself with a view mainly of his hotel room. Harassed by Saudi officialdom, stifled and spoon-fed by U.S. Army press minders, Angus struggles to unearth real stories about military corruption, the repressive Saudi society America is defending and front-line reverses once the longed-for fighting begins. Watching his comrades veer between frenzy and torpor in their media bubble, Angus ponders the rot at the heart of journalism especially the shallowness and vanity of television correspondents, one of whom uses up his tent mates' precious drinking water to shampoo his hair. First-time novelist and New York Times Cairo bureau chief MacFarquhar has this milieu down cold, though some of his tent poles are romantic clich s. A triangle between Angus, a cable-news babe and an egotistical producer yields much brooding over the transience of reporters' love lives, and the dichotomy between serious print journalists and TV airheads is a little facile. But media insiders and casual readers alike will relish his stock of witty observations and nasty anecdotes, while gleaning timely insights into the corruption of the news business. Michael Moore this isn't, but look for the book to serve as a kind of "physician, heal thyself" for the current wartime media, with corresponding talk show play.
