Family of Shadows - by Garin K Hovannisian (Paperback)

About the Book

Combining the historical urgency of The Burning Tigris, the cultural sweep of Middlesex, and the psychological complexity of Bending Toward the Sun, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a searing history of Armenia, realized through the lives of three generations of a single family. In Family of Shadows, Hovannisian traces the arc of his family's changing relationship to its motherland, from his great-grandfather's flight to America after surviving the Armenian Genocide to his father Raffi Hovannisian's repatriation and subsequent climb to political prominence as the head of the Heritage Party. Hovannisian's articles on Armenian issues, including the Genocide, the Armenian Diaspora, and the challenges of post-Soviet statehood, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Armenian Observer, Ararat, and numerous other publications.

Book Synopsis

Combining the historical urgency of The Burning Tigris, the cultural sweep of Middlesex, and the psychological complexity of Bending Toward the Sun, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a searing history of Armenia, realized through the lives of three generations of a single family. In Family of Shadows, Hovannisian traces the arc of his family's changing relationship to its motherland, from his great-grandfather's flight to America after surviving the Armenian Genocide to his father Raffi Hovannisian's repatriation and subsequent climb to political prominence as the head of the Heritage Party. Hovannisian's articles on Armenian issues, including the Genocide, the Armenian Diaspora, and the challenges of post-Soviet statehood, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Armenian Observer, Ararat, and numerous other publications.

From the Back Cover

As a world war rages through Europe in 1915, Ottoman authorities commence the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians--the first genocide of modern history. Alone, a teenage boy named Kaspar Hovannisian escapes the ruins of his ancestral homeland to pursue the American dream. In the San Joaquin Valley of California, he cultivates a small farm and invests in real estate. But memories of Armenia burn strong--a complicated legacy of love, anguish, and faith in a national rebirth.

Kaspar's son, Richard, leaves the family farm and helps pioneer the field of Armenian studies in the United States, becoming a worldwide authority on genocide. Richard's son, Raffi, is also haunted--and inspired--by the past. In 1989, he leaves his law firm in Los Angeles to stage the original act of repatriation to Soviet Armenia, where he goes on to play an historic role in the creation of a new republic.

Part investigative family memoir and part history of the Armenian people, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a breathtaking saga of tragedy, memory, and redemption that illuminates the long shadows that history casts on the lives of men.

Review Quotes

"Garin Hovannisian brings a historian's rigor, a poet's lyricism, and a native son's passion to this remarkable book. Intimate as memoir yet expansive as an epic, Family of Shadows puts the Armenian experience, in all its tragedy and triumph, into memorably human terms." -- Samuel G. Freedman, author of Who She Was: My Search for My Mother's Life

"Weaving together history, culture, and original reporting, Family of Shadows is an inspired tribute, full of passion and appreciation for the genealogy of the Hovannisian family and its transformation into an American success story." -- Dr. Vartan Gregorian, President of Carnegie Corporation of New York and author of The Road to Home: My Life and Times

With what one can only describe as an artistic skill, Garin Hovannisian interleaves the micro-story of his resilient family with the macro-narrative of the Armenian Genocide. One swiftly learns to appreciate the true meaning of the word 'indestructible'. -- Christopher Hitchens, author of Hitch-22: A Memoir

"Garin Hovannisian tells one of modern history's great unexamined stories. Whether you are an Armenian American like me or come to this story anew, Family of Shadows will move you with the intensity and intimacy of its detail." -- David Ignatius, columnist for The Washington Post and author of Body of Lies

"Hovannisian narratives in a swift, novel-like style... Cultural history and memoir gracefully entwined." -- Kirkus Reviews