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"In this chilling tale of Micah Garen's captivity and his loved ones' fight for his release lies a simple but eternal truth: love can--and will--push through all that hate just as surely as blades of grass through a sidewalk." Cogan
Memoir of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq and the Remarkable Battle to Win His Release
Simon and Schuster
October 2005
Featuring: Micah Garen; Marie-Hélène Carleton; Amir Doshi
288 pages
ISBN: 0743276604
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
A rare and powerful story of hope, love, survival,and the
struggle to bring back alive a hostage in Iraq Micah Garen and Marie-Hélène Carleton were journalists and
filmmakers working in Iraq on a documentary about the
looting of the country's legendary archaeological sites,
with their Iraqi translator Amir Doshi. In the late summer
of 2004, they began to wrap up their work, and Marie-Hélène
returned home while Micah remained for a final two weeks of
filming. As Micah and Amir were filming in a Nasiriyah
market, something went horribly wrong: Micah, who wore a
bushy mustache and was dressed in Iraqi clothing, was
unmasked as a foreigner and kidnapped by militants in
southern Iraq. Home in New York, Marie-Hélène awoke to a gut-wrenching
phone call from Micah's mother with word of his abduction.
She promised Micah's mother the impossible--that together
they would bring Micah back alive. American Hostage is the remarkable memoir of Micah Garen's
harrowing abduction and survival in captivity, as well as
the heroic and successful struggle of Marie-Hélène; Micah's
sister, Eva; along with family and friends to win Micah's
and Amir's release from their captors. The world watched
and waited as Micah's drama unfolded, but the authors, now
safely home and engaged to be married, detail the dramatic
untold story. After learning of Micah's abduction, Marie-Hélène took a
risky and unusual step: instead of relying on the
authorities to rescue Micah, she used her recent experience
in Iraq to construct a massive grassroots effort to reach
out to Micah's captors and plead for his release. As
fighting between Coalition forces and the Mahdi Army raged
in Najaf, Micah and Amir became pawns in a terrible
political game. The kidnappers released a video threatening
to kill Micah unless the United States withdrew from Najaf
within forty-eight hours. In response, Marie-Hélène's and
Micah's families redoubled their efforts, eventually
sending a representative to Nasiriyah to lobby for Micah. While Marie-Hélène worked on his release, Micah, imprisoned
alongside Amir under armed guard deep in the marshes of
southern Iraq, lived the nightmare of a hostagehaunted by
the alternating impulses of hope and despair, his desire
for survival and plans of escape. His experience reveals a
great deal about the lives and minds of militants in
southern Iraq. American Hostage is an engrossing and rare story of how
hope, love, and communal effort can overcome war, distance,
and cultural differences in Iraq.
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