The Distance Between Us

by Masha Hamilton

Book Overview

Caddie Blair feels everything strongly--and so she works hard to keep her distance. It's the ethical thing for a journalist to do, especially in a war-torn region like the Middle East. And Caddie... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193296102X
• ISBN13: 9781932961027
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Unbridled Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.01 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.3" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

closing the distance

Just as she did in her highly acclaimed novel, Staircase of a Thousand Steps, foreign correspondent Masha Hamilton once again closes the distance between us and those we see depicted at the top of the news. In Caddie Blair, Ms. Hamilton has created a character as conflicted as the region she covers, the Middle East...and that's a good thing!

"War strips us naked. I'm horrified by what I find in me"

Foreign Correspondent Masha Hamilton has done what few journalists can do, which is to write a story that is both literary and almost media-like it its intensity. She brings the sites, sounds, and smells of the Middle East to life, while also managing to convey the horror and awfulness of war. The author weaves an evocative tale of lost love, and sets it against some of the most startling descriptions of violence and brutality that one is ever likely to read. This tale of terror and emotional woe is told through the eyes of Caddie Blair, an American newspaper reporter who seemingly cannot get enough of the violence. The novel opens when Caddie and Marcus, her photojournalist boyfriend are scouting the border between Israel and Lebanon. Caddie is based in Jerusalem, but she persuades Marcus to accompany her to Lebanon because she has been promised an interview with a Lebanese crime king, a Princeton University-educated terrorist who might disclose new information about the course of the endless Arab-Israeli conflict. When their land rover is ambushed and Marcus dies in her arms, Caddie spins into an emotional whirlpool of anger, frustration and loss. On the verge of insanity and absolutely devastated, Caddie, refuses a generous offer from her newspaper to accept a position in New York City. Instead, she becomes even more addicted to the violence, wanting to be as close to it as possible and hoping to write a series of articles on the ultimate meaning behind this wasted conflict. She also steadily becomes obsessed with finding a way to hunt down Marcus' murderers. She deliberately goes out of the way to pursue clashes, from being caught up in a street conflict between the Israeli militia and the Arab street boys throwing rocks, to being smuggled into the occupied territories in order to see assassinations take place first hand, Caddie becomes consumed by what she sees before her. For her, the rush is unmatchable. Far better than drugs or alcohol - "the talcum dirt under her knees, the suspended smoke, the wide-eyed child, and the percussion of her own heart." But Caddie, also carries rage in her heart, and is constantly haunted by the memory of Marcus. She loved him dearly, and as she dreams of him, and sadly looks through the portfolio of his perceptive, prize-winning photographs, she finds herself musing without purpose, careening through memories, dallying longer among the dead than the living. It doesn't really matter that pieces of her have scattered. But when Caddie begins a passionate affair with Goronski, an enigmatic Russian operative, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, and Caddie thinks of him as her ticket to the discovery of Marcus' killers. Goronski, with a kind of omniscient presence, overwhelms Caddie with his slick sexiness and his inexplicable ability to know whom everybody is on both sides of the conflict. But Caddie is weary of him, as he seems to be somehow in the middle of all the carnage without dirtying his own

Remarkable: What Violence Does to One Woman's Soul

Masha Hamilton does not flinch when she writes. THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US is the story of an American journalist, Caddie Blair, who finds herself suddenly bereft, when her photojournalist lover is killed in an ambush. Caddie refuses to leave Jerusalem, preferring to cover the violence around her. She also begins to understand it in a visceral way, as she moves in so close to "the story" akin to a moth to a flame. This is a powerful, wrenching book, with language that is spare, poetic, and beautiful. As a journalist, author Masha Hamilton has covered the world's hot spots. Obviously this book went close to the bone. Read it. You will never forget it.

An Absolute Must Read

Masha Hamilton has brought to life a part of the world most of us know only through headlines. The Middle East is nothing if not an inexplicable testament to the horror people can bring to one another, but Ms. Hamilton has managed to bring a part of that world to life with style, grace, and a profound understanding of what it means to live there. Also, as a former journalist who covered that region, she allows us to look into the soul of those adrenalin junkies known as war correspondents. Her characters, her sense of place, her ability to create tension and resolution are deeply powerful, perhaps made more so by her disciplined, tightly controlled writing that allows for no more--and no less--than is required to make her point. As all great writers, she leaves us wanting more. It was a book I hated to finish.

A Superb Novel Which Gives Violence A Human Face

"The Distance Between Us" is an extraordinarily powerful, beautifully crafted novel. Masha Hamilton's prose is, at times, luminescent and lyrical, and at others, spare and almost brutal in its honesty. She paints here a poignant portrait of a woman facing a major crossroad in her life which will change her forever. This novel is more a sensitive psychological study than a book with an action driven plot. Catherine (Caddie) Blair is an American journalist stationed in Jerusalem, who has been covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years. She prizes her professional detachment and shies away from anything that smacks of sentimentality. It is important to keep her emotions under wraps in both her writing and in her personal life. "Reflect the story; don't absorb it," is her creed, "because if you allow yourself to feel the full force of sorrows and horrors, you will succumb to them." On a trip to Lebanon for an important interview, Caddie's Land Rover is ambushed and her lover, Marcus, is killed. His death stuns her; shakes her to the core. She, who has covered so many battles, so much violence, finds herself musing at the many colors of a loved one's blood. Accustomed to holding her emotions in check, she doesn't know what to do with the onslaught of feelings that threaten to overpower her. For the first time that she can remember her reporter's gift of perfect recall is gone, as is her ability to be a cautious observer. She fears that after this life-altering event, she will never be "restored to even an accepted facsimile of what she was before." Ordered back to New York for R & R by her editor, Caddie persuades him to let her remain longer in Jerusalem under the guise of writing a feature story on the "effects of violence." Overwhelmed with rage, a need for revenge, survivor's guilt, (Would Marcus have accompanied her if she hadn't asked him to do the photography for her article?), Caddie searches for a response to the murder. She considers revenge, retaliation, among other possible solutions. Compelled to act, she needs to do something that will bring her peace and allow her to move on with her life. And she longs to write something to compensate for all the barriers which sometimes got in the way of her stories. "A piece that will show intimately how violence shreds sleep and appetite and memory, disfiguring those it leaves behind. A story that will get close enough to give violence a human face." Ms. Hamilton brings her characters to life on these pages, especially Caddie. She is developed lovingly, and the changes she makes in the novel's 279 pages are intense and deeply felt. The novel's secondary characters are phenomenal, real originals - from interfering, gossipy Ya'el to Mr. Gruizin, who paints a red stripe on the mailbox of any out-of-town neighbor - to ensure their healthy return. There's mad Anya, who shouts and whispers her prophecies from street corners, Mrs. Weizman, always ready with her chicken soup to feed Caddie