The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy

Zusatztext 79901815 Informationen zum Autor Masha Gessen Klappentext Look out for Masha Gessen's new book! THE FUTURE IS HISTORY! coming October 2017"A gripping narrative and a stunning piece of investigative journalism… [that] gives us the human side to the story of two young men who must be understood as more than monsters" (Christian Science Monitor)On April 15! 2013! two homemade bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston marathon! killing three people and wounding more than 264 others. In the ensuing manhunt! Tamerlan Tsarnaev died! and his younger brother! Dzhokhar! was captured and brought to trial. Yet even after the guilty verdict and the death sentence! what we didn't know was why. Why did the American Dream go so wrong for two immigrants? How did such a nightmare come to pass? Acclaimed Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen is uniquely able to tell us. A teenage immigrant herself! she returned to Russia to cover firsthand the transformations that wracked the region from the 1990s on. It is there that she begins her astonishing account of the Tsarnaev brothers! descendants of ethnic Chechens deported to Central Asia in the Stalin era. Following the family in their futile attempts to make a life for themselves in one war-torn locale after another and then! as new émigrés! in an utterly disorienting new world! she reconstructs the brothers' struggle between assimilation and alienation! which incubated a deadly sense of mission. And she traces how such a split in identity can fuel the metamorphosis into a new breed of homegrown terrorist! with feet on American soil but sense of self elsewhere. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| CAST OF CHARACTERS ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| THE TSARNAEV FAMILY The Brothers: Tamerlan, wife Karima (formerly Katherine Russell), daughter Zahira; and Dzhokhar (later Jahar) Parents: Anzor and Zubeidat Paternal grandparents: Zayndy and Liza Paternal uncles, aunts, and cousins: Ayndy; Malkan and son Husein; Maret; Alvi, wife Zhanar, children Aindy and Luiza; Ruslan, first wife Samantha Fuller, father-in-law Graham Fuller Sisters: Bella, husband Rizvan, son Ramzan; Ailina, husband Elmirza, son Ziaudy Cousin: Jamal Tsarnaev KYRGYZSTAN Friends and neighbors: Semyon and Alladin Abaev, Anzor’s closest friends; Badrudi and Zina Tsokaev, neighbors and advisors; Alaudin and Aziz Batukaev, organized-crime bosses; Raisa Batukaeva, next-door neighbor and unofficial Chechen community leader; Ruslan Zakriev, owner of amusement park and official leader of Chechen community; Yakha Tsokaeva and Madina, friends in Bishkek, the capital School personnel: Lubov Shulzhenko, Tamerlan’s principal; Natalya Kurochkina, Tamerlan’s grade-school teacher DAGESTAN Gasan Gasanaliyev, imam of Makhachkala’s Kotrov Street mosque Magomed Kartashov, Tamerlan’s second cousin, head of Union of the Just Mohammed Gadzhiev, Kartashov’s deputy Kheda Saratova, human rights advocate BOSTON AREA Other Chechen immigrant families: Khassan Baiev (sambo champion, plastic surgeon, author), wife Zara Tokaeva, children Islam and Maryam; Makhmud (Max) Mazaev (owner of an elder-care center), wife Anna, son Baudy (Boston University student); Hamzat Umarov, wife Raisa Joanna Herlihy, the Tsarnaevs’ landlady Nadine Ascencao, Tamerlan’s girlfriend Brendan Mess, Tamerlan’s best friend, murdered in 2011 along with Erik Weissman and Raphael Teken Donald Larking, home-care client of Zubeidat and later Karima Norfolk Street neighbors: Rinat Harel, Chris LaRoche At Cambridge Rindge and Latin: Larry Aaronson, retired hist...

Report

Named a Best Book of the Year by Time Magazine

Praise for The Brothers:

Remarkable reminiscent of Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower Rather than the story of two lone-wolf jihadists, determined to wage war on their adopted country, the marathon bombing becomes a saga of both the Tsarnaev family and contemporary U.S. culture, in which all too often terror provokes an unreasonable response For Gessen, the issue is not guilt or innocence more essential is what the Tsarnaevs and their story tells us about who we have become. That she makes the case with grace and passion, while also basing it on rigorous reporting, is the triumph of the book Los Angeles Times

"Straightforward and captivating." Janet Napolitano, The New York Times Book Review

Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen s passionate, opinionated, deeply reported exploration of the long road that led the Tsarnaev brothers to commit the Boston Marathon bombing. She traces the family s history from Chechnya to a precarious Boston-area immigrant demi-monde, asking urgent questions and avoiding simple answers. Time

For American readers, most of whom know little of the Chechen story, the gut-wrenching clarity of Gessen s account is a gift. Her prose is spare and highly polished, evoking the melancholy of the Tsarnaevs s homeland...Gessen demonstrates the fragmentation within communities when fear and suspicion take root, and she shows how tactics used to fight terrorism risk degrading the ideals we aim to protect [Her] tenacious reporting commands our attention and makes The Brothers essential to understanding how the heartbreak here in Boston fits into the endless heartache of this world. The Boston Globe

A powerfully compelling portrait Gessen is uniquely suited to tell the Tsarnaev story: She moved to Boston as a teenage Russian immigrant herself, and, as a result, her observations about what immigrants experience carry specific gravity No book could ever fully explain why someone would choose to murder innocent people, but Gessen comes as close as we'll ever get. Much as Truman Capote did in his classic "In Cold Blood," Gessen offers compassion for those whose acts are most contemptible, and her explanation of what happened is as complex and as simple as it is to be human. And that is truly frightening.   Chicago Tribune 

"Stunning piece of reporting. An instant classic." Lev Grossman (via Twitter) 

A Russian-speaking immigrant in Boston, journalist Masha Gessen might be uniquely qualified to investigate Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. In The Brothers, she writes with sophistication and nuance about their family s complicated, nomadic existence an enthralling and illuminating read. Minneapolis Star Tribune, Fave of the Week  

Extraordinary Gessen, who traveled the globe in search of the secrets of the Tsarnaev family, has produced both a gripping narrative and a stunning piece of investigative journalism [She] gives us the human side to the story of two young men who must be understood as more than monsters. Christian Science Monitor

This is a story that no one wanted to hear in the days and months after the bombing...Many Americans still may not care to hear it, but that would be too bad, because [The Brothers] is one of the best books I ve ever read about terrorism and the immigrant experience in America part social history, part travelog (she traversed the Caucasus and Central Asia while reporting it), and part forensic on family and cultural dysfunction Gessen wanders among these people, and approaches them with empathy and dark wit... a student of state and stateless terror, [she] is excellent on the varieties of fear it engenders.   Newsweek 

[Gessen] uses facts and plausible conjecture to dispel the misconceptions and rumors that have accrued to the Tsarnaevs. No slouch in the sleuth department this Russian-born journalist assembles a challenging jigsaw puzzle that spans two continents. Her goal is to elucidate and contextualize the brothers principled savagery, not to exonerate or mitigate their actions. While several questions remain, the most important being motive, we at least learn the socio-cultural forces that shaped these lone-wolf terrorists. Miami Herald

Gessen compels us to see the story as part of a much bigger global conflict...[and] is an ideal person to contextualize much of this story, even if her conclusions make us uncomfortable Most importantly The Brothers relentlessly observes an overreach of power in response to the bombings an often painful account of our system s moral failings, the ways in which we re inhospitable to those seeking asylum on our shores, and the ways our law enforcement acts in a manner as draconian as law enforcement was in the strife-torn places they fled. That may not be the story we re looking for, but it is a story we very much need. Flavorwire, "A Must Read Book" 

Two parts forensic anthropology, one part activism, The Brothers is a forceful passionate exploration of the events that preceded and followed the [Boston Marathon bombing] Gessen is at her best when she takes the reader through the Tsarnaevs wildly complicated social history The origins of their story, itself dizzyingly complex, sets the stage for our understanding of the permanent state of exile and cultural confusion the Tsarnaev clan seemed to endure. San Francisco Chronicle 

[Gessen s] own background make[s] her an ideal author for this story her knowledge of Soviet and Russian history, and her reporting on the ground in Dagestan, Kyrgyzstan and Chechnya, lend a resonance and weight to the Tsarnaev family s peregrinations in that region Gessen explains how the history of Chechnya and the radicalism that took root there might have affected family members, and she also brings an understanding of the dislocations often faced by immigrants to her account." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
 
[The Brothers] is an antidote to prevailing narratives surrounding the Tsarnaev brothers and the Boston Marathon bombing. It is the kind of book that reminds us that there are two sides to every story With all the context Gessen provides the history of upheaval in Chechnya, the constant terror of life in Dagestan, the family s inability to find happiness and steady work in America it s hard not to feel as if the Tsarnaev brothers decision to bomb the marathon was at least in part the product of historical and cultural forces bearing down on two disenfranchised young men. It s an unsettling feeling to find oneself, one hundred and fifty pages in, rooting for Dzhokhar to escape from law enforcement. But that s the magic of this book: it turns two antagonists of American society into protagonists. The Rumpus

The fearless Russian-American journalist brings equal parts sympathy and skepticism to the Tsarnaev family fascinating and illuminating. Vulture

With a cool, clear voice, [Gessen] examines how America s tremendous dread of terrorism has marred our once-lauded justice system and distorted the legal rights of immigrants in this country [a] compelling study of Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Barnes & Noble Review

Gessen has done valuable work, shoe-leather reporting rather than the reflexive condemnation that flows after any murder, any attack she is to be commended for humanizing rather than demonizing the brothers. Newsday

Meticulously documented and detailed Gessen crafts a dark tapestry, woven of war and loss in Chechnya, Dagestan and the Tsarnaev s own brutal history"  Providence Journal

Gessen paint[s] an evocative picture of the impoverished and strife-torn region the Tsarnaevs left behind, and the Boston area community that they joined when they immigrated in the early 2000s. Kansas City Star

[Gessen s] background facilitates a much deeper than usual engagement with the context of the Boston atrocity We'd prefer, she suggests, to think of terrorism in terms of ideological fanatics carrying out an elaborate and well-thought out plot, because that allows us to externalise the evil. But the Boston bombings actually resulted from a tangled web of frustrations and unhappinesses, in which the personal, the political and the religious were inextricably entwined. Sydney Morning Herald

"The Brothers is certainly among the best journalism produced about the bombings." Pacific Standard

Meticulously researched and provocative Gessen asks courageous questions about the dark side of the justice system, providing a vital counternarrative to the account of the bombing given by mainstream media.   Publisher s Weekly

"Gessen makes it eerily plain to see how simply an atrocity can manifest." Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Words Will Break Cement

Urgent . . . damning. The New York Times

Praise for The Man Without a Face
 
[An] unflinching indictment of the most powerful man in Russia. The Wall Street Journal
 
Fascinating, hard-hitting reading. Foreign Affairs

Product details

• Authors: Masha Gessen
• Publisher: Riverhead
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.05.2016
• EAN: 9781594634000
• ISBN: 978-1-59463-400-0
• No. of pages: 291
• Dimensions: 138 mm x 208 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Riverhead
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education