Introduction

In 1986, Laura Blumenfeld's father was shot in Jerusalem by a member of a rebel faction of the PLO responsible for attacks on several tourists in the Old City. Her father lived, but Blumenfeld's desire for revenge haunted her. This is her story.

Traveling to Europe, America, and the Middle East, Blumenfeld gathers stories and methods of avengers worldwide as she plots to infiltrate the shooter's life. Through interviews with Yitzhak Rabin's assassin; with members of the Albanian Blood Feud Committee; the chief of the Iranian judiciary; the mayor of Palermo, Sicily; an Egyptian heroin smuggler; the Israeli prime minister and the military chief of staff; priests; sports fans; fifth-grade girls; and prostitutes, among others, she explores the mechanics and the psychology of vengeance.

But ultimately it is a journey that leads her back home -- where she is forced to confront her childhood dreams, her parents' failed marriage, and her ideas about family. In the end, her target turns out to be more complex -- and in some ways more threatening -- than the stereotypical terrorist she'd long imagined.

A rare, ambitious, personal, and intellectual tour of dark urges often denied, Revenge: A Story of Hope is a beautifully written story about family, loyalty, and home, about the personal passions behind public events, and about the thin line between love and hate.

Editorial Review

In 1986, a Palestinian terrorist shot author Laura Blumenfeldâ??s father. More than a decade later, Blumenfeld, a reporter for The Washington Post, decided to find the man who tried to kill her dad; she also wanted to learn about vengeance. â??I was looking for the shooter, but I also was looking for some kind of wisdom,â?? she writes. â??I wanted to master revenge.â?? Blumenfeld interviews a variety of people, from religious figures to assassins, about the meaning of revenge. The heart of the book, though, is her own journey to find the man who pulled the trigger. First she locates his family and learns vivid details about his life--he was a standout in his public-relations course at the University of Bethlehem. Blumenfeldâ??s own emotions arenâ??t far from the surface of this narrative. When she meets the shooterâ??s own father, for instance, she asks herself: â??Am I supposed to shoot him now?â?? Finally she begins a creepy correspondence with the gunman, who is in prison. Their letters back and forth are oddly compelling--at first the shooter doesnâ??t know her real identity, though she eventually reveals it. In the end, Blumenfeld says her quest helped her find hope in a dangerous world, even as the final words of her book reflect upon September 11 and its immediate aftermath, when so many other Americans longed for their own vengeance. --John Miller

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