Twenty-five-year-old Michael Hastings arrived in Baghdad to cover the war in Iraq for Newsweek . Armed with the tools of a twenty-first-century reporter—cell phones, high-speed Internet, digital video cameras, drivers, guards, translators—he describes in startling detail the atmosphere, the violence, and the never-ending threats of bomb and mortar attacks. .
While on a break in New York, Hastings falls in love with Andi Parhamovich. Andi, twenty-eight and striving for a better world, follows Michael to Iraq with the National Democratic Institute, and readers see their war-zone romance—a carefully coordinated intimacy that nonetheless puts them in harm’s way. Then Andi goes on a dangerous mission for her new employer that ends in catastrophe..
Unflinching and revelatory, I Lost My Love in Baghdad is “reminiscent of Michael Herr’s Dispatches , possessing the same view of intimacy…a great war book” ( Sydney Morning Herald ). .
"There's a long tradition of young reporters going off to wars that test their journalism skills and their capacity to absorb emotional pain. Michael Hastings's pain was off the charts, but he manages to tell his story -- and the tragic story of his girlfriend Andi -- with dignity, humor, and grace. This is a searing personal drama and a raw, compelling account of the daily battle to cover the war in Iraq." -- Andrew Nagorski, author of The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler, and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow That Changed the Course of World War II
"Love and war always make for a potent brew, and in Michael Hastings's new book they infuse the horror in Iraq with an immediacy and a poignant sense of loss that are light-years away from the numbingly remote headlines we've been reading. This is what really happens when love, youth, and innocence descend into the abyss of death and devastation that is Iraq." -- Craig Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud and American Armageddon
Michael Hastings spent two years reporting in Iraq as Newsweek's youngest-ever war correspondent. He has written four cover stories for Newsweek International and been published in Slate, Salon, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, filing stories from such locations as Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, Kurdistan, Vietnam, and Afganistan. He is now a contributing editor at GQ and lives in Vermont.
Publisher: Scribner
Distributor: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 02-16-2010
Pages: 304
Measurements: 8.44in X 5.5in X 9.065oz
