The Hostage's Daughter: A Story of Family, Madness, and the Middle East
By sulome anderson

In this gripping blend of reportage, memoir,
and analysis, a journalist and daughter of one of the world's most
famous hostages, Terry Anderson, takes an intimate look at her father's
captivity during the Lebanese Hostage Crisis and the ensuing political
firestorm on both her family and the United States-as well as the
far-reaching implications of those events on Middle Eastern politics
today.In 1991, six-year-old Sulome Anderson met her father,
Terry, for the first time. While working as the Middle East bureau chief
for the Associated Press covering the long and bloody civil war in
Lebanon, Terry had been kidnapped in Beirut and held forand her entire
lifeand by a Shiite Muslim militia associated with the Hezbollah movement.As
the nation celebrated, the media captured a smiling Anderson family
joyously reunited. But the truth was far darker. Plagued by PTSD, Terry
was a moody, aloof, and distant figure to the young daughter who had
long dreamed of his return-and while she smiled for the cameras all the
same, she absorbed his trauma as her own. Years later, after long
battles with drug abuse and mental illness, Sulome would travel to the
Middle East as a reporter, seeking to understand her father, the men who
had kidnapped him, and ultimately, herself. What she discovered was
shocking-not just about Terry, but about the international political
machinations that occurred during the years of his captivity.The Hostage's Daughter
is an intimate look at the effect of the Lebanese Hostage Crisis on
Anderson's family, the United States, and the Middle East today. Sulome
tells moving stories from her experiences as a reporter in the region
and challenges our understanding of global politics, the forces that
spawn terrorism and especially Lebanon, the beautiful, devastated, and
vitally important country she came to love. Powerful and eye-opening The Hostage's Daughter
is essential reading for anyone interested in international relations,
this violent, haunted region, and America's role in its fate.