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    Joseph Anton: A Memoir
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    Joseph Anton: A Memoir
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    Joseph Anton: A Memoir
    Audiobook27 hours

    Joseph Anton: A Memoir

    Written by Salman Rushdie

    Narrated by Sam Dastor

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    On February 14, 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran."
     
    So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov-Joseph Anton.
     
    How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. He talks about the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and of the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom.
     
    It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative, moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day.

    Includes a prologue read by the Author.



    Praise for Salman Rushdie
     
    "In Salman Rushdie . . . India has produced a glittering novelist-one with startling imaginative and intellectual resources, a master of perpetual storytelling."-The New Yorker
     
    "Salman Rushdie has earned the right to be called one of our great storytellers."-The Observer
     
    "Our most exhilaratingly inventive prose stylist, a writer of breathtaking originality."-Financial Timesa writer of breathtaking originality."-Financial Times
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9780449807828
    Unavailable
    Joseph Anton: A Memoir
    Author

    Salman Rushdie

    Salman Rushdie is the author of many acclaimed novels, including Midnight’s Children (winner of the Booker Prize and the Best of the Booker), Grimus, Shame, The Satanic Verses, Haroun and The Sea of Stories, The Moor’s Last Sigh, The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Fury, Shalimar the Clown, The Enchantress of Florence, Luka and the Fire of Life, and Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights—and a collection of short stories: East, West. He has also published works of nonfiction, including Joseph Anton (a memoir of his life under the fatwa issued after the publication of The Satanic Verses), The Jaguar Smile, Imaginary Homelands, and Step Across This Line—and co-edited the anthologies, Mirrorwork and Best American Short Stories. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. A former president of PEN American Center, Rushdie was knighted in 2007 for services to literature.

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    Reviews for Joseph Anton

    3.5/5

    192 ratings20 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Loved the first third of the book which was a gripping memoir, but lost interest as it became an account of the politics of the story.
    • 4/5
      Self-regarding, self serving, gossipy and delicious. I can even forgive the name dropping and writing about himself in the third person, because he's just bloody good. And funny.
    • 2/5
      Only good enough to make me want to read his fiction. As a person, Rushdie seems unlikable enough, but if this hadn’t been an audiobook, there’s no way I would have gotten through it.
    • 3/5
      Niets dan respect voor een man/auteur als Rushdie en hoe hij de fatwa overleefde...Toch had ik wat moeite om dit veel te lang aanslepende dagboek te doorworstelen, het leek me voor de schrijver noodzakelijker om het te schrijven dan voor de lezer om het te lezen...
    • 4/5
      I have only read one book by Rushdie, thus far - The Enchantress of Florence. I loved that book with all it's flaws. Rushdie can be a rambling writer. The same can be said about this one. Sure it needed to be edited better. The worst part of the book is the third person affectation. But it was anything but boring. I finished this book in less than a week. Whatever it's flaws, he is a compelling and engrossing writer.

      True, I could have done with wit less information about his marital woes. Sure, sometimes it reads like a gossip column in what Rushdie likes to call the Daily Insult. But the name dropping anecdotes do provide insight into how different people react in difficult situations; how the world divides between those with courage and heart and those who are willing to go along out of cowardice or coldness. Rushdie's detailed story about his personal experiences gives insight into and a voice to the lives of millions who across time and space have been at the wrong end of totalitarian hatreds. Rushdie is the first to admit that money and fame allowed him far more comforts than other victims. No one can deny he has the right to defend himself against his critics. Yet he is honest enough to expose his own flaws and let his readers judge for themselves who Rushdie really is: a flawed but generous man with a big heart and a matching ego, caught up in an undeserved nightmare caused by the evil thoughts of diseased minds -- a nightmare that unwittingly made him the canary in the coal mine.
    • 3/5
      The first part of this book is really interesting, a 4 out of 5 stars, but as I continued to read, it got worse. Much worse. The incessant name-dropping, the persistent self-promotion, the monolithic Islamist community, the blind spots to his character weaknesses and lack of introspection, the misogyny, chasing after 'crazy' women, the cliched "all I needed to see was the smile from my son's face", and did I mention the name dropping? UGH. I give it a 2 1/2 stars because although it only deserves two stars, I did learn a lot from this book. DO NOT BE LIKE THIS MAN.
    • 5/5
      Awesome
    • 3/5
      Quite a book. I've very much admired much of Rushdie's work. And always fascinated even when I'm annoyed. This is a fascinating glimpse into his life during the period of the Fatwah. Still trying to decide what I think about the book as a book. Fascinating to use the third person. Have to admire the ambition of the book. Still trying to figure out what I think of it as a personal statement, an auto-biography. Listened as audiobook. Quite a long book.
    • 4/5
      Rushdie's memoir primarily covers the fatwa years. However, he includes quite a bit of information about his childhood and formative years, including his time at an English boarding school. Reading about how he got his first book published, how Midnight's Children came to be written, his writing process, where he gets his ideas, the stylistic and technical choices he makes in his writing and all other sorts of literary matters was quite fascinating, and this was the part of the book I liked best. I also enjoyed most of the rest of the book about the fatwa years, but felt that it went on just a bit too long. Of course, Rushdie may have just been seeking to create in the reader the feeling of the tedium of those years. I had forgotten just how long they were--more than 10 years in hiding. I had also forgotten just how violent they were--one of Rushdie's translators was murdered, and two other of his publisher/translators were stabbed or shot. And many died or were injured in riots protesting the book around the world.At first Rushdie had to scramble to find a new place to stay every few weeks, then he later was allowed to stay in one place for a few months. After a few years he was able to move into a home he purchased and basically reconstructed to include the most up to day security and protection devices and reinforcements. During the entire fatwa time he and his wife of the moment lived with a cadre of security guards 24 hours a day. (Wherever he lived, there had to be room to accommodate these guards, who ate, slept and lived on the premises with Rushdie.) He was also being constantly reminded (in the press), about the enormous cost of his protection to the taxpayers, the implication being that some people, Margaret Thatcher for example, are worth being protected, and others, a nasty writer like himself for example, are not.In addition to going on a bit long about the day-to-day tedium of being under protection (i.e. the repeated battles to be able to go out to dinner, or visit friends or go to a book signing; the lengthy battle to insist that a paper back version of The Satanic Verses be published), the book is a bit gossipy. In some cases I found it interesting to read about Rushdie's famous friends. For example, reading about Bill Buford caused me to read Buford's book. But in some cases, it felt to me like Rushdie was score-keeping, as if he divided writers into those who supported him and those who did not. One person who comes off extremely poorly in the book is Marianne Wiggins, his wife at the time the fatwa was declared. In Rushdie's version of events she is a simply awful human being, and at times seemed almost mentally ill. (I really liked her book John Dollar, so I wonder what her version of events would be.) Rushdie himself doesn't always come of as the most likeable character--shortly after Marianne leaves he takes up with Elizabeth, and they seem deliriously happy (or as happy as they can be in the circumstances), but shortly after his and Elizabeth's son is born he begins an affair with a beautiful Indian actress, and there's much discussion/whining about the ensuing divorce proceedings and about Elizabeth's trying to get her hands on his money.Well I better stop before I tell the whole story--all 650+ pages of it. Rushdie in my view is an excellent writer, and despite its flaws, this book is well-worth reading.
    • 2/5
      One of the Amazon reviewers says he likes Rushdie as a cultural figure but not as a writer. I'm in the opposite camp; I love Rushdie as a novelist but not as the fatwa victim he is in his memoir.

      He's been accused of arrogance, ungratefulness, and of simply being a whiner, all accusations that ring true throughout this endless mundane description of what it's like to live in hiding. Yes, he does examine (too briefly, in my opinion) his reaction to being castigated on a global stage for his views, and being forced to defend freedom of speech instead of taking it for granted as most of us can, and fighting with people who lack the courage to stand up for him, but his reaction at every turn is simplistic and predictable: righteous indignation and more righteous indignation.

      Instead of unraveling a beautiful, complicated, (or heaven forbid conflicted) insight from all of these experiences as I expected him to do, he spends little time on Satanic Verses, the book that caused the uproar, and even less on introspection. 40% finished, I forget exactly what it was in the Satanic Verses that catalyzed the hatred of Islamic leaders, other than a few vague descriptions of certain characters and events in the novel that were interpreted as allegorical criticism of Islam. Come on! People were lighting this book on fire! They wanted to kill him for it! A book as powerful as that deserves some dissection, a few theories at least! All he says is that while he was aware of the connections he was making in the book, he didn't think they'd cause such a stir. That's true, I'm sure, but when your head went on a wanted poster for it, might you take a step back and really analyze what it was in the book, in the global atmosphere, in the butterfly wing reactions of world events that caused the pot to boil over? Might you put the book into its complicated context, and yourself and your own history as a migrant between cultures at the heart of this firestorm, and really paint a bigger picture for us? He talks so much about the shame of hiding in the countryside with a bevy of police protectors, so much about various friends who lent him places to stay, so much about the chronic frustration engendered by such a lifestyle, so much about the sordid problems with his publishers and his women.

      It's smooth reading, as you'd expect from Rushdie, but you get to know the man very little. Or maybe I'm finding (can it really be true?) that this literary genius is, in real life, a shallow man not worth getting to know? The other astonishing hole in the book is the lack of substance about how such a life in hiding and a global uproar might change him as a person, might unearth strengths and insecurities, might cause him to reflect. Nope. Zero humility, faltering, guilt, imperfection, or self-examination. He focused instead upon the "crazy" women who pursued him, on how expensive it was to keep finding new houses to rent.

      2 stars because in spite of all this I'm enjoying the read, for Rushdie's style and for the glimpse, however limited, into that period in time. I just wish someone other than Rushdie had written this book. Then, his arrogance might have been portrayed alongside some loveable stumbling. We might have watched the whole world light on fire with the omniscient perspective of history, the same exhilarating view you're awarded when you read Rushdie's novels. The stories he tells are marvelous, so long as they're not his own.
    • 2/5
      There is a story in this book. There should be: Rushdie is a talented writer, and his memoir is not just about his time in hiding during the fatwa declared against him; it is also about the publishing world's response to political turmoil, and the international response to literary turmoil.

      But it became too hard to keep track of that story; the book is stuffed, overstuffed, with dropped names. Only some of the many, many influential people Rushdie names connect to his survival of the fatwa -by writing in his support, or providing him with safe places to stay- and only a very few others were referenced as good friends. Most of the rest were just names, seemingly mentioned for the sake of being well-known people, never given personality (and often not even speaking parts), just accorded a moment in time and a setting. Maybe it reflects more on me than this book, but it became too frustrating to focus on dissolving marriages, loose-tongued security, and compromised safe houses, when every page was sprinkled with "These six people went to this chichi place, and so did I."

      I think I would have finished, and bought, and read this book dog-eared had it been half its length, with the balance of size being the removal of most of the name-dropping. Maybe I will pick it up again in the future.
    • 4/5
      Rushdie’s memoir about his time under the fatwa is a moving one. Dealing with thirteen years of hiding, he might have gone crazy. But he did not. He can seem to name drop at times (he is a famous writer after all) and perhaps still hold some grudges in residual bitterness (people did betray him and stab in the back), but overall it’s a fairly brutal retelling of a period in his life when he was not always proud of himself. He paints himself as having made some less-than-stellar decisions about his relationships, but also as having learned some very important lessons. What stands out is the formidably loyal friends who stuck with him through the thick and the thin.
    • 4/5
      I enjoy the way Salman Rushdie writes. I find him very funny even when talking about serious subjects like the fatwah. My only criticism of this book was that I thought that he was "name-dropping" a bit much. I did not really care about how many famous authors he knows or who was at the parties he attended. None of this was important to the message of the book which was the difficulty of being hunted and threatened for ten years.
    • 4/5
      Thank you Goodreads and Random House for this giveaway!

      What does feta cheese have anything to do with the fatwa? You'll find out, if you read this book.

      This is a long book. It is all about Salman Rushdie and Joseph Anton. It is a memoir of the years the author/father/husband/lover/"infidel" lived under the threat of the fatwa that ordered his assassination.

      So, if you do not like Rushdie, do not like detailed accounts of how books are published, lives are lived under the daily monotony of hiding out under security details, and how a man, a pretty well known writer, lives, writes, gets married, divorces, raised children, cheats on his wife, argues with Scotland Yard, politicians, journalists, other writers... Well, this book is not for you, I am afraid. Stay away.

      Rushdie does Rushdie well, and if you like that, you will enjoy this book. He names names, he gives away lots of gossip, as most memoirs do, and perhaps should (otherwise, why not a biography instead?). He rants, writes imaginary (to religion, god, etc.) and real (to friends, MPs, etc.) letters, criticizes people, criticizes himself, makes excuses for his behavior, accepts his mistakes, argues that in certain things he was not wrong, thanks many people, and does all that the Rushdie way. As someone who is interested in publishing as an industry, and in writing and the lives of writers, I found Rushdie's account of the saga of the publication of the Satanic Verses and his following books fascinating. His account of the securities given in person by politicians and fellow writers, and the complete reversal of promises in public is fascinating. His account of the ramifications of the fatwa, his continued career, and his troublesome travels on international politics is fascinating.

      For those interested in Indian, Turkish, British, and American politics, the events of the fatwa years have many interesting intersections with the major events of the political lives of these countries and beyond.

      For those interested in freedom of speech and the right of artists and writers and anyone, really, to create works that question, criticize, scrutinize, and speculate about religion (and leaders of religions), politics (and politicians), and human actions, this is perhaps one of the must-reads of the century. If you have read things about Rushdie and the Satanic Verses from news sources, essays written by others, and other books, you should give the author a chance to argue his freedom and creation. Especially if you are aware that most news sources distort the truth and many who speak out have agendas of their own, and obtaining an unbiased opinion about people and even books is, well, impossible, then you should hear the biased opinions and arguments of Rushdie to get a better picture of what happened and why.

      For me, perhaps the most interesting parts of the book were those in which Rushdie argues how the practice of a religion cannot be thought of as a separate entity from the religion itself. Having had this argument with strong believers of religions myself, I can say that it is good to hear an eloquent voice arguing on my side. I can also say that it is a losing battle. I am glad Joseph Anton is finally dead, but there will be many others who live/die for the same reasons.
    • 4/5
      Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie's memoir of the years under the fatwa is remarkable for a number of reasons and one of these is - how long ago this all seems. How much the terrorist threat has moved on from individual threats to individual writers to the situation today. Mr Rushdie's fatwa almost seems a reminder of gentler times - although not of course to Mr RushdieMr Rushdie has four main aims in his memoir. The first is to lionise those of his friends, associates, and members of the public who behaved generously and well when he needed help. This he achieves. The second is to excoriate heavy handed and authoritarian security services that imposed draconian and expensive security regimes on him, and the lily livered governments refusing to defend citizens under threat. This he also achieves, although its probable that this heavy handedness was caused by over caution rather than malevolence; and Mr Rushdie seems to forget sometimes that governments have a duty to all citizens and not just him. The third is to rage against those who he thinks overtly or subconsciously, supported the would be murderers. This is understandable, and there are a number of public figures (such as John Le Carre) who don't come out of this looking very goodHis fourth objective is to talk about the impact on his various marriages over the fatwa. For sure the fatwa would have placed enormous pressures on all concerned, but in truth Mr Rushdie doesn't come out of this very well. Its not necessary to like an author personally to admire his work, or to support his right to free speech and a normal life. However it has to be said that Mr Rushdie comes across as a less than likeable person. He comes across as self absorbed, arrogant and with a nasty streak - surely it is sufficient, for example, to explain that his wife, Marianne Wiggins, was depressed because her book John Dollar was selling poorly. Is it really necessary to twist the knife by saying she had sold 23 copies? Thats just malicious . Similarly, he spends much of the book being generous in his praise of the way his first wife, Clarissa, dealt with the threat and her support for their son, Zafar. But then he ruins it by claiming that she demanded $150,000 additional settlement years after their divorce. Their are two sides to every story like this - and Clarissa is no longer alive to give her side of it. Rushdie brings it up AGAIN, when describing the final days of her struggle against cancer. Its just unnecessary, and only possible for someone who really doesn't have much empathy for othersNone the less its an interesting memoir of an almost forgotten time. It could be have used more editing, and less name dropping, but still interesting. And I look forward as eagerly as ever to his next work of fiction
    • 4/5
      Salman Rushdie was the featured author for the re-opening of Kepler's. We had sold out all tickets and were selling spaces for standing room only. But rather than let every one stream into the store, we had 2 security guards to check everyone's bags, 2 plain clothes police men and Mr. Rushdie had his only private security ... in a bookstore. This is what life is like when Ayatollah Khomeini declares a fatwa because he found something you wrote offensive, even when the fatwa was issued 13 years ago and Khomeini has been dead for over a decade. In fact, just 2 weeks before Rushdie appeared in our store, the reward for his death was increased from $2.8 million to $3.3 million.

      Joseph Anton is an open and honest account of what life was like in the years following the fatwa. Because Rushdie had to go into hiding, he was told to choose a new name. Joseph Conrad and Anton Checkov are two of his favorite authors, hence the new identity of Joseph Anton. It was interesting not only to hear how Rushdie survived those years, but to see the different reactions and behaviors of other authors, publishers and politicians. People were assassinated over this book and many people had to make the choice to stand up for freedom of speech or try and keep a low profile. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Joseph Anton confirmed two things for the reader. She confirmed Salman Rushdie to be a talented writer. She also confirmed Salman Rushdie is not a likeable man.It was interesting (though a bit tedious) to hear of the days of the fatwah (plus some before and after) from the author's view. The interactions with other notable authors or public figures was also intriguing. Even the snippets from letters (the one that suck out in her mind was a thank-you note to Tony Blair, which might be clever, even witty, but ultimately came off to the reader as arrogant and insulting), journals, and articles lent depth to the narrative.However, the lasting impression for the reader was that Salman Rushdie is essentially a rather unpleasant person. He loves his sons. He loved his wives (though arguably more before he married them than while he was married to them.) However, maybe it was the use of the third person during the entire memoir, but the author of Joseph Anton failed to engender much sympathy from the reader through the course of the book. In fact, there were a few times when she could be heard shouting "You idiot!" or "You arrogant sod!" at the audio book innocently playing on the sound system.There were several things that engaged the reader's attention and became a part of her mind's wonderings when the book was no longer playing. One was her own memories of those days covered in the book: the way the world changed in 1989 besides the news of one author's plight, back when mobile phones didn't exist, and email was still years away, through to the death of Princess Diana, 9/11, and other world events. Another was her interest in how the title of the book was chosen (though she had to wait well into the book to discover that.)The third bit that might just be the "take away" from this book for the reader came not from Rushdie, but from his mother. She said she has not a memory, but a "forgetory" where she placed all the memories she did not wish to confront again. All in all, the reader was glad to have listened to the book, particularly since she was able to do a lot of other things while the book was being read to her. If she had to give up actual time that could have been productive in other ways to sit and read it, she would have been most unhappy.She wishes Mr Rushdie good luck with the rest of his life.
    • 5/5
      [Joseph Anton] by [[Salmon Rushdie]]The title of the book, a memoir about Rushdie’s years under Fatwa, is taken from the alternate identity he developed while in hiding. Joseph Anton represents the first names of two of Rushdie’s favorite writers—Conrad and Chekov. The British Secret Service called him ‘Joe”, which he didn’t particularly like.The book highlights how hard it would be to be in hiding; not able to use your own name; not able to run simple errands on your own, and having to sneak around to visit with your 9 year old son. The difficulties are compounded by fearing for your life and the lives of those close to you. Hitoshi Igarashi, the Japanese translator of [the Satanic Verses], was stabbed to death on 11 July 1991. It was also hard that Rushdie faced criticism from a number of sources who felt that he should no have insulted Islam.Clearly, Rushdie’s intent was not to insult. As a secular Muslim, he was using his own stories, the stories from his culture, to create a work of art.The book, all 600 plus pages, is written in third person. I particularly enjoyed the first half which provides a lot of context to Rushdie’s novels, and which feels intense and suspenseful. There is also lots of information and gossip about Rushdie’s wives, friends, and fellow literary figures. The second half drags a bit, as I believe that living in hiding dragged for Rushdie.I love Rushdie’s view of literature and it’s role in society: “Literature tried to open the universe, to increase, even if only slightly, the sum total of what was possible for human beings to perceive, understand, and so, finally, to be. Great literature went to the edges of the known and pushed against the boundaries of language, form and possibility, to make the world feel larger, wider, than before. Yet this was an age in which men and women were being pushed toward ever-narrower definitions of themselves, encouraged to call themselves just one thing, Serb or Croat or Israeli or Palestinian or Hindu or Muslim of Christian or Baha’i or Jew, and the narrower their identities became, the greater was the likelihood of conflict between them. Literature’s view of human nature encouraged understanding, sympathy, and identification with people not like oneself, but the world was pushing everyone in the opposite direction, toward narrowness, bigotry, tribalism, cultism and war. There were plenty of people who didn’t want the universe opened, who would, in fact, prefer it to be shut down quite a bit, and so when artists went to the frontier and pushed they often found powerful forces pushing back.”
    • 2/5
      A really good edit would have been nice. He repeated so much information - maybe he thought we would "forget" because he was so wordy. Also I am not sure I was supposed to recognize the multiple people with whom he interacted.
    • 4/5
      Joseph Anton is Rushdie's memoir of the years he spent, mostly in hiding, under the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa. The fatwa, which was announced on Valentine's Day, 1989, has never been officially revoked; in 1998, the Iranian government proclaimed that it would neither support nor hinder attempts to assassinate the author, but there is still a $3 million-plus bounty on his head. The title of the book is the name Rushdie assumed while in Scotland Yard's protection and is taken from two of his favorite writers: "Joseph" from Conrad and "Anton" from Chekhov. In a recent interview, Rushdie claimed that during this time he felt as if he was watching another person's life from a distance, a person separate from himself--hence the book is written in third person.It's hard to imagine what life would be like if you were forced to move at a moment's notice--dozens of times. To live with a squad of armed policemen (one of whom accidentally blew a hole through a wall). To be unable to visit a dying parent, have dinner with friends, attend a memorial or an activity at your child's school, or, as a writer, give public readings of your work. Rushdie details all of this, as well as his efforts to live as normal a life as possible. For this, he credits a cadre of trusted friends, including Christopher Hitchens, Paul Auster, Bill Buford, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Bono, among others. Rushdie also engaged in a constant legal battle to get The Satanic Verses distributed worldwide in paperback format.Of course, Rushdie's personal life suffered during this time. His greatest regret is the difficulty the fatwa caused for his son Zafar, who was 10 at the time it all began. Although divorced from his first wife, Clarissa Luard, the two remained friendly and strove to maintain as normal a relationship as possible for father and son. Marianne Wiggins, his second wife, to whom he was married when the fatwa was pronounced, does not come off so well; in fact, the American writer is depicted as a selfish, self-promoting wacko. Rushdie met his third wife, Elizabeth West, the mother of his second son, while under protection. Initially, West seems almost saint-like in her patience and devotion, but this image falls apart as the marriage falters due to her depression over not bearing more children and Rushdie's desire to move to the US, where he felt he could live a more open, normal life. Wife Number Four, model, would-be actress, and reality show host Padma Lakshmi,is referred to as "The Illusion," and Rushdie rather shamefacedly admits to falling into a fairly typical mid-life crisis (homely older man, beautiful younger woman), as well as pursuing a somewhat elusive American dream that she came to represent. Lakshmi, like Wiggins, comes off as self-absorbed and ambitious (when he attempts to visit her in LA after a new threat has been announced, she says she is going on a lingerie shoot), and Rushdie makes short shrift of her.On the whole, Rushdie's memoir is insightful and engaging. If one thing is made clear, it is that he wouldn't have endured, had it not been for the love, help, and encouragement of his close friends, family, and associates. And it is this humanization of Salman Rushdie, more than his literary achievements or politicized position, that allows readers to relate to his plight. Note: I listened to this book on audio. The reader, Sam Dastoor, was brilliant, with one caveat: his American accent, which never varied. Whether he was impersonating Bill Clinton, Kurt Vonnegut, George Stephanopoulos, or Susan Sontag, they all sounded like sarcastic cowboys.