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The Best Kind of American
- Author
- Kim Ghattas
- Narrator
- Nan McNamara, Kim Ghattas
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Publish Date
- 22 October 2026
- Run Time
- 10 hours
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
A work of true crime following one American family’s search for the truth after a 1984 murder in war-torn Beirut, where the Iranian revolution collided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, setting off the geopolitical conflagration that burns to this day, from acclaimed and bestselling author Kim Ghattas.
On January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by a pair of gunmen outside his office. His murder, in the wake of the bombing of the US Marines’ barracks, Palestinian guerrilla warfare, and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was just one more shocking headline in a city ravaged by the chaos of nine years of war. There was no investigation. Four decades later, the question of who killed Malcolm and why still haunts Kerr’s family, including his son Steve, a world-famous basketball player and NBA coach.
In The Best Kind of American, Kim Ghattas embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of Kerr’s assassination, weaving together the family’s story with that of Lebanon’s warlords and peacemakers, Hezbollah hostage takers and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and American presidents from Reagan to Trump. She also tells the definitive story of how Beirut came to be the point of origin for the policies and people who went on to shape the Middle East for decades, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was then assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike in the opening salvo of their 2026 war against the Islamic Republic. With the nuance, clarity, and storytelling that made Black Wave an era-defining work on the Middle East, Ghattas delivers a riveting, deeply human saga—a must-read for understanding why this conflict continues to shape today’s world.
Critics Review
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Gripping, authoritative, compassionate and perceptive, [...] a vital contribution to our understanding of the recent history of the Middle East and of today's conflicts that continue to cause such tragedy and suffering. Ghattas draws on her deep knowledge and understanding of Lebanon, Iran, and the US, to tell an important story with the energy and rigor it deserves.
Jason Burke, author of 'The Revolutionists' and International Security Correspondent at The Guardian
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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.
Scott Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of King of Kings and Lawrence in Arabia
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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.
David Rothkopf, author, columnist, and former editor of Foreign Policy
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A miraculous achievement. [...] This is essential reading for anyone concerned about the region’s tragic trajectory. But it is also a counterintuitive story of hope for both Lebanon and the whole region’s best and brightest, symbolized by intellectuals like Malcolm Kerr and Samir Kassir, martyrs to the liberal possibilities of the modern Arab world. A deeply moving and brilliant book.
Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and Director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at CUNY’s Graduate Center
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Kim Ghattas is one of best informed, most intelligent and eerily prescient writers on the Middle East, remarkable for her ability to bring clarity to the most complex scenarios. [...] It is not just essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the toxic confluence of rival forces at work in the region, it is also that rarity: a hugely enjoyable non-fiction thriller.
William Dalrymple, historian and author of 'The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World'
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Kim Ghattas delivers with skill and verve, weaving the story of one American family’s tragedy into the tangle of connections between ruthless leaders, religion, nationalism and war - and the consequences for all those swept up in forces that radiate out from the Middle East to the rest of the world. [...] Kim Ghattas has cemented her reputation as one of the most acute and essential analysts of the world’s most turbulent region.
Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor and author of 'The Making of the Modern Middle East'
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Spellbinding. [...] Readers caught up in the search for mysterious assassins will be mesmerized by the larger drama as Lebanon is torn apart by competing gangs of terrorists, religious zealots, warlords, and the governments that secretly backed them. With exquisite reporting and bracing clarity, Ghattas exposes the malevolence, miscalculations, and fanaticism that set the stage for a half-century of destruction and chaos.
Joby Warrick, author of Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
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This is a profoundly brave book a moving tribute to the forcibly disappeared, and to the enduring grief carried by those who loved them.
Emma Sky, author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq, Director of Yale's International Leadership Center
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Brilliant, disturbing, honest, thoughtful, and thought-provoking, this is the best kind of book on the Middle East. [...] Ghattas takes us through wars, assassinations, and terror, to the edge of despair and back, all while resurrecting Malcolm Kerr, a great human and Middle East scholar who was murdered while serving as president of The American University of Beirut. His assassins were never found, and now, after 42 years, another great scholar of the Middle East, Ghattas, resurrects his story and legacy.
Azar Nafisi, New York Times bestselling author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Republic of Imagination
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Ghattas has done incredible research into a painful history that sheds light on the past and illuminates the present. The result is a page turner that unmasks, holds accountable, and humanizes. A true feat!
Tarek El-Ariss, author of Water on Fire: A Memoir of War and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth
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Rarely has a book been more timely. Kim Ghattas skillfully weaves the strands of history together to provide an essential guide to why the US finds itself - once again - on the back foot in the Middle East. Her love for Lebanon is mixed with an ability to stand back and analyse the forces that time and again tear her country apart. She is a remarkable journalist, historian and writer.
Lindsey Hilsum, International Editor, Channel 4 News, and author of 'I Brought the War With Me'
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The Best Kind of American masterfully turns a four-decade-old Beirut murder mystery into the key to understanding today’s Middle East. Kim Ghattas blends sublime storytelling and her uncanny sense for the region’s geopolitical faultlines into an unputdownable true crime thriller rife with gunmen, revolutionaries, statesmen, warlords, terrorists, hostage-takers and – most of all – a family and society searching for truth and justice amid the wreckage. [...] Absolutely essential reading.
David McCloskey, Sunday Times bestselling author of 'London Station'
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Methodical scholarship, riveting storytelling, rigorous analysis. A family tragedy with the pace and tension of a John le Carré thriller. Few writers could pull off something so ambitious.
Janine di Giovanni, CEO of The Reckoning Project and author of 'The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria '
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Damning history of American bumbling in the Middle East . . . [a] wide-ranging narrative . . . of great importance to anyone seeking a clear view of a bewildering geopolitical arena.
Kirkus (*STARRED REVIEW*)
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Highly recommended. Ghattas’s forensic reconstruction of the origin of U.S.-Iran-Israel enmity details personalities, interactions, events, and decisions that carry forward to 2025, offering readers a nuanced and timely backstory of the 2026 war in Iran.
Library Journal (*STARRED REVIEW*)
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Kim Ghattas
- Narrator
- Nan McNamara, Kim Ghattas
- Duration
- 10 hours
- Release Date
- 22 October 2026
- ISBN
- 9781399419444
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Bloomsbury Publishing
- Genre
- International relations, Political abduction, imprisonment, ‘Disappearance’ and assassination, Reportage, journalism or collected columns
Synopsis
Bloomsbury presents The Best Kind of American: Murder, War, and America's Undoing in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas, read by Kim Ghattas and Nan McNamaraA work of true crime following one American family’s search for the truth after a 1984 murder in war-torn Beirut, where the Iranian revolution collided with the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, setting off the geopolitical conflagration that burns to this day, from acclaimed and bestselling author Kim Ghattas.On January 18, 1984, Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated by a pair of gunmen outside his office. His murder, in the wake of the bombing of the US Marines’ barracks, Palestinian guerrilla warfare, and the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, was just one more shocking headline in a city ravaged by the chaos of nine years of war. There was no investigation. Four decades later, the question of who killed Malcolm and why still haunts Kerr’s family, including his son Steve, a world-famous basketball player and NBA coach.In The Best Kind of American, Kim Ghattas embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of Kerr’s assassination, weaving together the family’s story with that of Lebanon’s warlords and peacemakers, Hezbollah hostage takers and Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and American presidents from Reagan to Trump. She also tells the definitive story of how Beirut came to be the point of origin for the policies and people who went on to shape the Middle East for decades, from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was then assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike in the opening salvo of their 2026 war against the Islamic Republic. With the nuance, clarity, and storytelling that made Black Wave an era-defining work on the Middle East, Ghattas delivers a riveting, deeply human saga—a must-read for understanding why this conflict continues to shape today’s world.
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