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My review of Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, appeared in the Boston Globe this past weekend. Here is an excerpt:

Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” is a brilliant and bittersweet graphic memoir that chronicles the author’s relationship with her formidably troubled father, Bruce. The book takes its title from the funeral home that Bruce inherited and ran. In his spare time, he restored the family’s 1867 Gothic Revival house. Giving a semblance of life to dead bodies and returning its lost splendor to an old home — Bruce was obviously obsessed with appearances. “He used his skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things appear to be what they were not,” Bechdel writes. The deceit lasts for many years; only when Bechdel is in college does she find out that her father is gay.

You can read the rest here.

As you may recall, Professor Fouad Ajami found time from his visits to the White House to write another book about the Middle East. It’s called The Foreigner’s Gift, and it’s been reviewed in the NYT by Noah Feldman, who himself was involved with the ill-fated Iraqi adventure. He was hired by the Provisional Authority as a consultant to help draft the new Iraqi Constitution–you know, the piece of paper that says that no law in Iraq can contradict principles of Sharia? Anyway, here is Feldman on Ajami:

Few other Americans have Ajami’s distinctive qualifications for reflecting on the Iraq war. Born to a Shiite family in Lebanon, he has written several important books about Middle Eastern political culture, including a recognized classic on the Lebanese Shiites, “The Vanished Imam.” He supported the removal of Saddam Hussein, and his extraordinary level of access in Washington is reflected in “The Foreigner’s Gift,” which recounts many conversations he had in Iraq while shadowing American officials or traveling with close American allies like Chalabi. Respected by politicians who disdain most academics, and excoriated by antiwar academics who detest the present government, Ajami richly deserves the attention of both camps.

More than just “supporting the removal of Saddam Hussein,” Ajami was one of those scholars (Bernard Lewis, Kanan Makiya, et al.) who predicted (in fact, told the administration) that the Americans would be greeted with “sweets and flowers.” One hundred thousand deaths and a civil war later, why would anyone lend credence to his analysis of Iraq?? But, hey, what do I know–I’m just a poor Arab immigrant. And a woman, at that. I think I’m supposed to be silent or submissive or something.

Feldman is on more solid ground in his criticism of Peter Galbraith’s The End of Iraq, in which the question of the Kurds (and an independent Kurdistan) is discussed. Here, Feldman raises some serious and pragmatic questions to the proposal:

The chief problem with the “break Iraq in two” option is that creating an independent Kurdistan does absolutely nothing to address the present violence in the country. It might be nice for the Kurds, especially if the United States gave them the Kirkuk oil field and then permanently stationed large numbers of troops in Kurdistan to protect it. But Kurdistan is mostly peaceful, and at present Kurds are not fighting Arabs in Iraq, except to some small degree around disputed Kirkuk itself. The violence in Iraq is predominantly Sunni-Shiite; and the United States desperately needs the stabilizing third force of the Kurds in the national leadership and the armed forces to have any hope at all of damping it down. To the contrary, breaking off Kurdistan would create a new violent front, because a Sunni ministate could never survive without a share of Kirkuk’s oil, and so Sunni insurgents would have to turn their attentions to the Kurds. This is to say nothing of the continuing concerns of Turkey about an independent Kurdistan, or the possibility of Turkish encroachment having to be confronted by American forces.

To this list one might also add the domino effect an independent Kurdistan could have for other Kurdish minorities in Syria and Iran. Oy. Is your head spinning yet?

In late 2004, the Rev. Joseph Dantica, a Haitian refugee who had sought asylum in the States, died while in immigration services custody. His niece, the novelist Edwidge Danticat, has been trying to uncover the circumstances of his death ever since. Now, at last, there are some details about what happened to the pastor, in an AP story by Pauline Arrigalla.

I’m doing another giveaway today: Jami Attenberg’s Instant Love, which the author kindly signed when she came through Portland last month. Told through the alternating points of view of several women, the novel focuses on the difficulty of making connections and forming relationships. Some of you may already know Attenberg through her blog, whatever-whenever.net, or through her many published writings, including, most recently, this great piece for Nextbook.

So. The first reader to email me with a request gets the book. Please use the subject line: “Attenberg.” Please include your mailing address. Previous winners excluded.

Update: The winner is Shabana S. from New York, New York. There will be another book given away later today. Good luck.