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Reviews tagging 'Forced institutionalization'
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall
1 review
carriepond's review
challenging
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
4.25
In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, journalist Nathan Thrall takes one tragedy-- a deadly bus crash just outside Jerusalem involving Palestinian children-- and uses it as a jumping-off point to examine the history of the West Bank and the present-day reality of Israeli occupation in the area. The result is a nuanced portrait of a cast of characters that lays bare the systemic failures (some by accident, most by design) that exacerbated the tragic outcome of the accident.
It is not easy to use one day to examine decades of history, but Thrall did so very successfully here. This is a propulsive and maddening work of narrative non-fiction, and I thought Thrall did a good job of weaving in the personal and larger histories at play in a way that didn't detract from the parts focused on the bus crash. In addition to feeling completely caught up in the story, I learned a lot from this book. I also listened to Traci Thomas's interview of Thrall on her Podcast The Stacks and it was excellent-- recommend listening to that in conjunction with reading this.
It is not easy to use one day to examine decades of history, but Thrall did so very successfully here. This is a propulsive and maddening work of narrative non-fiction, and I thought Thrall did a good job of weaving in the personal and larger histories at play in a way that didn't detract from the parts focused on the bus crash. In addition to feeling completely caught up in the story, I learned a lot from this book. I also listened to Traci Thomas's interview of Thrall on her Podcast The Stacks and it was excellent-- recommend listening to that in conjunction with reading this.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, and Fire/Fire injury
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