I Was Told to Come Alone

October 30, 2017
Actor Potter stands in for but doesn’t adequately capture the voice of the author in reading the audio edition of Mekhennet’s memoir. As a journalist, Mekhennet first shot to fame in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, when her talent, drive, and Muslim identity granted her unprecedented access to terrorist cells and war zones throughout the world. Raised in Germany by immigrant parents from Morocco and Turkey, Mekhennet’s unusually cosmopolitan background helped her to see multiple sides of the stories she has covered for Western outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR. Potter doesn’t quite have those cosmopolitan chops, however. As a narrator she is competent, but she sounds thoroughly American here, and is therefore not quite believable as a globe-trotting German reporter. If the listener can get past that miscasting, though, other advantages of Potter’s narration, like her emotional sensitivity, become evident. She also captures Mekhennet’s unexpected moments of humor in an otherwise serious book, like when she recovers her confiscated Kindle after being interrogated in Egypt and discovers that her captors apparently read to the end of a self-help book for single women. Still, the difference between the author’s background and the narrator’s is apparent throughout. A Holt hardcover.

Starred review from April 24, 2017
Washington Post correspondent Mekhennet (The Eternal Nazi) offers a spellbinding fusion of history, memoir, and reportage in this enthralling account of her personal experience as a journalist and a Muslim on assignment in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The author’s unique perspective is informed by both her professional life as a reporter working for major publications and by her personal background—she was raised in Germany by a Turkish mother and Moroccan father and is fluent in Arabic. This combination of personal background and vocation provides her as if with insider access in her work to uncover and untangle the roots of Islamic radicalism. Journalistic coups abound here—for example when she recounts the uncovering of Jihadi John’s identity—and moments of historical importance to which Mekhennet was a witness are described in thrilling detail. Historic religious, internal political, and global conflicts are lucidly delineated. While Mekhennet’s modus vivendi as a reporter opened doors for her to rulers and important religious and political figures, here her focus is sharply on individual people, including on the family members of purported terrorists, who themselves experience profound loss. The value of this work lies in Mekhennet’s commitment to “not taking any side, but speaking to all sides and challenging them.”