The Best Kind Of American (a Story Of Murder, War, And America's Undoing In The Middle East)

By (author) Ghattas Kim
Short description/annotation:
A work of geopolitical true crime following a family seeking the truth about a 1984 murder in Beirut, when the Iranian revolution collided with an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, from acclaimed and bestselling author Kim Ghattas.
Description:

A work of geopolitical true crime following a family seeking the truth about a 1984 murder in Beirut, when the Iranian revolution collided with an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, from acclaimed and bestselling author Kim Ghattas.

On the morning of January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, stepped out of the elevator in College Hall and was shot in the head by two gunmen. His murder, carried out in the midst of the Lebanese civil war—alongside an Israeli invasion, Palestinian guerrilla warfare, and the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks—made headlines for only three days. Four decades later, the question of why he was murdered, and by whom, still haunts Kerr’s family, including his son Steve, a now world-famous championship basketball player and NBA coach.

In The Best Kind of American, Kim Ghattas tells the story of Kerr’s assassination as both a murder mystery and an international thriller. Through the lives of his family, colleagues, and those who may have betrayed him, the book ultimately tells the origin story of the decades-long confrontation between the U.S. and Iran, and how it first turned violent during Lebanon’s civil war. Beginning with America’s entanglement in Lebanon in the early 1980s, Ghattas shows how one murder set in motion a conflict—including bombings, hijackings, and hostages—whose repercussions continue to shape the Middle East and the world, culminating in the Iran-Israel-US military showdown in the summer of 2025.

Essential and gripping, this is a must-read for anyone hoping to understand the roots of this modern conflagration.

Review quote:
By centering her narrative on the murder of Malcolm Kerr, the president of the American University of Beirut, Ghattas has written both a geopolitical whodunit and a masterful investigative history of the forces that have torn apart Lebanon for the past 50 years. The Best Kind of American is not only a riveting book, but a very important one by one of the most astute chroniclers of the modern Middle East.
Review quote:
It’s rare to read a book about the complex and fraught recent history of the Middle East and your first reaction is: I can’t wait to see the movie version. Kim Ghattas, a masterful writer, brings to life the compelling stories of fascinating, often remarkable people and makes us care about them deeply. A triumph.
Biographical note:
KIM GHATTAS is a Middle East expert, author, and Emmy-award winning journalist. She’s a contributing writer for The Atlantic magazine, a contributing editor for The Financial Times, and a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. She was a Distinguished Inaugural Fellow at the Columbia University Institute for Global Politics. She previously reported for the BBC from the Middle East and Washington DC. She is the author of Black Wave, a New York Times notable book on the Saudi-Iran rivalry and of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, a New York Times bestseller. She splits her time between her hometown in Beirut and writing desks around the world.
Promotional headline:
A work of geopolitical true crime following a family seeking the truth about a 1984 murder in Beirut, when the Iranian revolution collided with an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, from acclaimed and bestselling author Kim Ghattas.