Engaging tale of Rushdie's life, including the 9 years he spent under Special Branch protection and hiding from Iranian assassins because of a book he wrote. A testament to the importance of standing up for our freedom to think, speak and write independently and creatively, and in uniting against terrorism in any form. Rushdie is an excellent storyteller, portrays himself in the 3rd person (perhaps to get some distance?) which seems odd at first, and is at times unflinchingly honest in his self-portrait. He also seems to be settling some scores with those who made his years under the fatwa even more difficult, yet after having others who don't necessarily like, know, or understand you define who you are in the media, it's understandable that he'd want to have his say, at last. Most powerful are his words on the power of literature to help us find common ground with one another, even when we may disagree politically, religiously, artistically.

This long book’s primary impact was to get me to consider my own preconceived notion of who Salman Rushdie is. And to acknowledge how much my notion of who he is had been the production of the media—for I hadn’t read his books (&, for that matter, only barely had heard his name—if I had) at the time, Valentine’s Day of 1989, when he became front page stories with the “fatwa”: the calling for his death by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini. And, I think that’s the author’s major point—to tell his story from his perspective. It strains your openness toward him, as it’s so much from his thoroughly subjective perspective, especially in regards to of his sympathetic and unsympathetic attitude toward x-wives and x-professional colleagues and those orbiting in his circles, particularly other literary celebrities. (In the end, perhaps this book is mostly a statement on celebrity—but here I’m getting off my “primary” point.) In JOSEPH ANTON Rushdie articulately (by a cute—or annoying—third person, he=I, stance), persuasively, and forcefully presents his case. He rewards those who were good soldiers and punishes those who failed him. I like this author least when he’s bothering me with his celebrity status by focusing so much value on those other “stars.” I liked this book the most when learning about Rushdie’s childhood—his dilemma at age 13 to escape his native India (and leave his family’s sanctuary) in favor of an UK education and much wanted distance from bitter parental discord, his adolescence in the changing ‘60s, and his first work as a writer of snappy copy for the ad business in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s. & particularly the discovery of his voice—his reaching back to hear the sounds of his Indian childhood & languaging that in his first successful novel, MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN. Back to my start, the reason I’d urge others to read this book is to appreciate the great injustice of the fatwa and to admit her/his lack of courage in standing up against this injustice. Or, at least to acknowledge, as I have to, that her/his opinions about this man were the result of accepting the media’s presentation of him—as someone who was partially responsible for bringing on the fatwa, because he wanted it, because this “outrageous provocation” was somehow in his interest. Rushdie might not be (especially for feminists) an attractive figure—how many celebrities are?—but he deserved more of our undiluted support. He’s an artist and a state leader offered great incentives for his followers to kill him. Just because he wrote a novel (THE SATANIC VERSES) that included his theological examinations of his ancestors’ religion.

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