Family of Shadows: A Century of Murder, Memory, and the Armenian American Dream
Hovannisian is an American-born journalist who now lives both in the U.S.and Yerevan, Armenia. In this engrossing and inspiring saga of three generations of Armenian Americans, he recounts the personal histories of his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father and places them within the context of Armenian history over the past century. The result is a story of personal redemption and national renewal. Great-grandfather Kaspar witnessed the slaughter of family members in 1915 during the Young Turk&#x2013;inspired genocide in western Armenia. He fled to the U.S., where he became a prosperous farmer in California. Grandfather Richard awakened to his heritage as a teenager and immersed himself in Armenian language and history and became a renowned professor of Armenian history at UCLA. Father Raffi emigrated to the newly independent Armenian republic in 1990 and is active in political life there. Given recent Armenian history, there is tragedy as well as triumph here, but this generally is a joyful celebration of a family&#x2019;s role in a national revival of an ancient people and land. --Jay Freeman