The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit is an extraordinarily moving and well-written memoir that speaks to the immigrant experience that built America. The focus is on author Lucette Lagnando’s family, particularly her father, Leon. Leon was a prosperous Cairo businessman. A lover of Cairo’s nightlife, Leon did not consider marriage until spying 20 year old Edith at an outdoor cafe in 1943.Within a few weeks, they become engaged, and wed shortly after.

Devout Jews, the Lagnado family lived in harmony with their Moslem and Christian neighbors in a spacious apartment on a bustling Cairo boulevard, Malaka Nazli. The Lagnado family has servants. The children attend the finest schools, and wear the finest clothes, and are often treated to excursions to Cairo’s most renowned cafes and pastry shops. The family vacations each year by the sea, and visits with their extended family are routine.

This magical life ends when Nasser comes to power, and the Jews of Egypt are forced to leave with only whatever clothing they can take-no money, no jewelry, nothing that would help them begin a new life. The family spends a year living in Paris, then comes to New York, all with the assistance of international refugee aid organizations. Eventually, the Lagnado family ended up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, amidst a small community of Egyptian Jews.

Over the years, the different family members react to their new circumstances in different ways. As Leon and Edith age and become more infirm, their children become more distant, and more American. Leon and Edith never really become American.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit is a love letter to a time gone by, and also a sad and realistic depiction of how immigrants become American. As all traces of their old life disappear, some become stronger, and other are destroyed.

I highly recommend this fine memoir, and look forward to reading more of Lucetter Lagnado’s work. ( )

Too many books. not enough time. ( )

Beautifully written, poignant story narrated by the youngest surviving daughter of a once affluent Egyptian family who flees Cairo under Nasser's rule in 1963. The family lost everything which ultimately becomes the ruination of the author's once dashing, cavalier father, Leon. Eventually, the family relocates to America. The author is now a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Very memorable story. ( )

Interesting read about women in Egyptian family... ( )

Lucette Lagnado's moving memoir is subtitled My Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World. It is a story of a remarkable father and his family movingly told with the feel of a novel as you share the experiences of this family who traveled half way around the world to settle in America. Lucette Lagnado, who is a senior special writer and investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal, demonstrates both her skill as a writer and an investigator.

The story begins with the marriage of her parents, Leon and Edith, in wartime Cairo. As the family establishes itself after the war, the position of the Jewish community gradually deteriorates until, in the early sixties, they flee to Paris en route to their eventual destination. The strength of both parents and the details of the family's difficult journey is a story that this reader found intensely moving. The thought of being "stateless", as they were once they left Egypt, is hard to imagine. That they overcame this and survived is a tribute to their courage. This is a memoir that I will not soon forget. ( )