Good Reads / Community Library Notes
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
Michael David Lukas
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo
Michael David Lukas
Review by Priscilla Comen
The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, by Michael David Lukas, is the tale of Joseph, a Berkeley student, who has received a package from his long-dead father. Joseph is the son of a Muslim father and a Jewish mother. He learns about his ancestors when he travels to Egypt, and we are carried back generations to when the al-Ragb family served as watchmen of the Ibn Ezra synagogue in old Cairo. One thousand years ago, Joseph’s ancestor, Ali, was the first watchman of the synagogue. He lived in one room near the synagogue and had once prevented three boys from trashing the holy place. He is praised by the grateful Jews of the town. He sees and falls in love with a beautiful daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant. They do not speak or stare at one another.
Author Lukas returns us to the present when the student, Joseph, is in Cairo. He develops a friendship with Abdullah, the door man at his hotel. Joseph has been searching for Mr. Mosseri who was a friend of his father’s and might shed light on the paper that had been sent in the mysterious package.
We are later introduced to twin sisters, Margaret and Agnes, who journey to Cairo in 1897 at the age of fifty-four, from Cambridge, England. They brought with them ten steamer trunks filled with clothes for all events, chemicals cameras, and books about ancient manuscripts. They also brought their cherished chess set. Their mission is to bring ancient documents back to Cambridge University for safe keeping. They are taken on a tour of the Ibn-Ezra synagogue. The “geniza,” the attic storeroom, is what they have come so far to see. Thousand-year-old manuscripts and important scraps of paper are piled on the floor of the attic. The women see a footprint in the dust and a space where papers had once been stacked. Will they discover who has stolen the papers?
When Mr. Mosseri gives Joseph a box of letters, he takes them to his hotel room and reads for hours. They tell the story of his parent’s love affair, and of his birth. Most are from his mother to his father. After twenty-five years, some from his father are still unopened. Did they ever marry? Did his mother, an educated woman, truly love his father who was the Muslim watchman? Author Lukas weaves an incredible tale of beauty and history. Find this on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
Author Lukas returns us to the present when the student, Joseph, is in Cairo. He develops a friendship with Abdullah, the door man at his hotel. Joseph has been searching for Mr. Mosseri who was a friend of his father’s and might shed light on the paper that had been sent in the mysterious package.
We are later introduced to twin sisters, Margaret and Agnes, who journey to Cairo in 1897 at the age of fifty-four, from Cambridge, England. They brought with them ten steamer trunks filled with clothes for all events, chemicals cameras, and books about ancient manuscripts. They also brought their cherished chess set. Their mission is to bring ancient documents back to Cambridge University for safe keeping. They are taken on a tour of the Ibn-Ezra synagogue. The “geniza,” the attic storeroom, is what they have come so far to see. Thousand-year-old manuscripts and important scraps of paper are piled on the floor of the attic. The women see a footprint in the dust and a space where papers had once been stacked. Will they discover who has stolen the papers?
When Mr. Mosseri gives Joseph a box of letters, he takes them to his hotel room and reads for hours. They tell the story of his parent’s love affair, and of his birth. Most are from his mother to his father. After twenty-five years, some from his father are still unopened. Did they ever marry? Did his mother, an educated woman, truly love his father who was the Muslim watchman? Author Lukas weaves an incredible tale of beauty and history. Find this on the new fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.