This one was a bit of a struggle to rate - 3 stars is a stretch. While I enjoyed Ali's story, I loathed his grandson, and although his character really only had a small part in the story, it was large enough to really detract from Ali and his story. And as much as I enjoyed a fair amount of the book, I truly struggle to understand how this book took 20 years to write. Based on the reviews, I'm clearly in the minority, but this book just wasn't for me.

Picture in The Sand is a good page-turner. It is part suspense and part drama.

It does a few things well. It not only takes you to the set of the Ten Commandments production (a big chunk of the book focuses on around the filming of the movie and shortly after) and shows you this fictional set, it also transforms you to 1950's Egypt. The author's attention to detail with the setting of this story is apparent. 

The author, stealthily, educates you about the country's complicated political history. I very much appreciated it. The author (a former journalist) clearly did his research well. 

Now the drama in the book became too much at parts and I could have done without the torture scenes in the prison. So just know it gets graphic in a couple of scenes but they are skippable. 

I initially had a tiny issue with the story with mostly Muslim characters being written by a non-Muslim, non-Middle Eastern author. But as I read it I didn't find anything overtly wrong or distasteful with the way these characters were portrayed.

This is an interesting Grandfather to Grandson cautionary tale. Timely in it topic of radicalism and classic in its
generational wisdom. The writing style and choice of words gives clues to the read as to how each man is
evolving in his thoughts and behaviors. Excellent book choice for discussion especially with multi generaltional
groups.

Fascinating story that encapsulates a time of political and religious precariousness. I learned quite a bit from this novel all while engaged in the story unfolding before me.

When his grandson disappears to join jihad, grandfather Ali finds himself telling the story of his own experiences in politics and violence through his work with Cecil B. DeMille filming his Ten Commandments in the deserts of Egypt, hoping to be able to reach his grandson, his story brings back memories, hopes and disappointments. Exceptionally well written and entertaining, highly recommended reading!

It’s 2014 when young Alex decides to ditch his plans of going to Cornell University in order to join a terrorist group fighting in Syria instead. As an Arab American kid growing up in the aftermath of 9/11, he’s long felt ostracized by his own nation. Too much unsupervised Internet time leads to his recruitment by terrorists, who come up with a plan to help him travel to the Middle East. He sends his family a farewell email, asking them to never contact him again.

Of course, his frantic family ignores this request, but it’s perhaps his grandfather Ali, the first member of their family to immigrate to America, who has the best chance at reconnecting with his idiot grandson. Ali was once a disaffected youth too, and recognizes the urge that would turn a young man toward violence and destruction, having felt it himself so many decades ago:

QUOTE
I wanted to feel strong instead of broken. I pictured high-velocity shock waves [...] destabilizing the structure and causing it to come crashing down, flimsy as a house of matchsticks, nails and planks flying, the giant brought to its knees, collapsing in a mighty thundercloud and leaving only smoldering wreckage.

My pulse began to quicken as I imagined being part of something so momentous and devastating. I would not have to think of myself as a loser who had disgraced himself in Sinai. Who wouldn’t want to be a warrior instead?
END QUOTE

Once upon a time, Ali was an Egyptian teenager dreaming of making movies in Hollywood. When he hears that the legendary Cecil B DeMille himself is coming to the country to film The Ten Commandments, he does everything he can to attach himself to the production. With the help of his dad, a caddy for rich tourists, he manages to get hired as an assistant to the famous director, a position well beyond his wildest dreams. He’s ready to make the most of it, hoping to impress DeMille enough to launch his own career in film.

But a terrible accident on his very first day on the job puts both himself and the production in jeopardy, even before they’re summoned to meet Egypt’s new de facto leader. Gamal Abdul Nasser has overthrown President Mohamed Naguib, and is scrutinizing every single one of his predecessors’ contracts, including the agreement to let DeMille film. He puts the Americans, and Ali, on notice that he’s watching their every move.

As Ali spends time escorting DeMille and co from Cairo to the Sinai Peninsula to Alexandria, he begins to grow more and more disillusioned with these people he’d once dreamed of joining. It doesn’t help that the young woman he’s been in love with since their first meeting in college is paying more attention to the filmmakers than to himself. When his firebrand cousin Sherif approaches him with an offer and a threat – help Sherif and the Muslim Brotherhood destroy DeMille’s film set or have Sherif reveal the truth behind the accident he was involved with – he doesn’t know how to say no. He isn’t even sure that he wants to.

Decades later, Ali is finally ready to come clean about this dark time in his life, hoping that sharing his own misgivings and heartache with his grandson will persuade the latter to abandon violence and the inevitable misery that comes with it. He attempts to draw parallels between his own plight and the increasingly tenuous circumstances Alex eventually admits to finding himself in, as the young man’s flight to Syria turns out not to be as courageous or noble as he imagined. Working with this, Ali admits that he had his own fear-filled reasons for staying a course he increasingly doubted:

QUOTE
After all, Naguib still had the title of president and there were more than a million Muslim Brothers in the country. If they were inspired to rise up in revolt, he might regain power and put Nasser in chains. Even in my hopeless fallen state, I recognized my own self-interest in this. Under a new Ikhwan-backed regime, I might be marked for death as a traitor. Unless I could show some value as an asset.
END QUOTE

Peter Blauner has delved deeply into the history and culture of both Egypt and Hollywood filmmaking to produce this remarkable tale of a grandfather trying to save his grandson from going down the same ruinous path he once flirted with himself. The depiction of 1950s Egypt is colorful and persuasive, as is the description of the festering frustrations in the heart of barely adult men who feel that they’re owed power and respect. The characterizations otherwise can sometimes feel flat, but there’s no denying the passion and genuine care that drive this historical, generation-spanning thriller.

Picture in the Sand combines some of my favorite things: beautiful and original storytelling, old Hollywood during the filming of The Ten Commandments, and an intergenerational family saga. I really enjoyed a historical fiction novel that took me to Egypt in the 1950’s. A very interesting and entertaining read.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

Ali Hassan tries to stay connected to his grandson who has run off to the Middle East after 9/11 to join the jihad. Through a series of emails and letters, Ali reveals a mysterious past in the hopes of changing his grandson’s mind. I really wanted to like this book but just had a hard time connecting with characters and sticking with the slower plot pace. Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to read and review this book.

A historical fiction book based on true events. This book was a poignant and powerful view of 1950’s Egypt and a grandfather trying to dissuade his grandson to change his views and come back home. This book was brought to my attention by NetGalley and St Martin’s Press was kind enough to gift me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I was completely enthralled by this book, the storytelling by Blauner is excellent, from start to finish. You read this book with all your senses, you live through Ali’s experiences and feelings. We have love, actions, and intrigue, it has it all and for most of the book I just wanted to smack Alex in the head but although it was slow, he gradually realized that his idealism wasn’t as bulletproof as he thought. I'm glad I have a copy because I will treasure it and have it in my re-read list.

Hi, thank you VERY much for enabling me to read this book early. I liked it a lot. I wouldn't say I loved it, but I did like it. Here is the review I wrote on my Goodreads page (link below):

Rating: 3 stars
A compelling way to showcase an extremely volatile time in history through one of the most extravagant films ever made. Cecile B DeMille is making The Ten Commandments with thousands of extras and the pyramids and the Sphinx in the background as political upheaval pervades. The rebels are humanized through the main characters and it’s really their story, not the Hollywood one. That said, I would have liked a little deeper dive into the making of such a massive movie. Because we live in a time of computer generated special effects, I would have loved some more exploration of the making of a film of this magnitude during this era. A little more of that and my rating would have been higher.

This is a magnificent book and I find it hard to put it into words how much I was affected by it. I wasn't all that interested at first when I saw it on NG but a couple of people read it and said I should give it a try. So I did and I am so glad I took the chance.
Ali Hassan is a grandfather trying to save his grandson from being lost to Isis post 9/11. His letters to his grandson are the story of his life, his dreams, his losses and the making of the epic movie The Ten Commandments. It's the story of Egypt's political shift in the 1950's and so much more. It's an amazing book and one that should be a must read. It's that good.
My thanks to the publisher Minotaur and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Picture in the Sand by Peter Blauner

Young Alex and his elderly grandfather Ali trade emails on the cusp of Alex’s joining a jihad in an unnamed country for an unnamed terrorist group. Ali shares with Alex a similar coming of age experience that he had growing up in 1950s Egypt.

In their mutual correspondence, Ali tells of his life with actors, movies, director Cecil B DeMille, famous leaders, spies and his unreliable cousin Sherif. The description of everything that happens deserves a huge tip of the hat to author Blauner. It is a remarkable tale he has woven.

Grandfather Ali was an especially endearing character, and readers will be touched by the book’s ending. This is a story for those liking a saga bordering on truth and fiction, and, for me, a solid four star book. Many thanks to #StMartinsPress and #NetGalley for the ARC for this delightful adventure.

It took me a little while to get fully invested in this story, but once I did, I couldn’t wait to find out what would happen next. Essentially, this is a grandfather’s story of his life as a young man in Egypt during the filming of The Ten Commandments in 1954, in the middle of political turmoil, as told in emails to his grandson, who has left the US to join an Islamist group that we eventually realize is ISIS. I didn’t know a lot about this time in Egyptian history and so I wound up learning a lot. You also find out a lot about how a movie is made on location, all the myriad things that go into creating a huge movie like The Ten Commandments.

The grandfather’s journey from being a young Western film aficionado to how he winds up working as a driver for Cecil B. DeMille during the filming of the parts of The Ten Commandments filmed in Egypt to his being caught up in the political turmoil of the day and how he winds up in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, is quite a story.

Warning: there are some graphic scenes of torture and references to other disturbing events.

Thank you to NetGalley and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

George Eliot is attributed with saying “History repeats itself.” In a grandfather’s attempt to dissuade his grandson from continuing with his path towards radical Islam we are given a perspective of the events that led up to what many historians believe was the beginning of groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. We begin in the fall of 1954 and intriguingly the story is initially focused around the Cecil B. DeMille and the film The Ten Commandments. This was two years after the Free Officers from the Egyptian army, along with members of the Muslim Brotherhood, organized a coup in opposition to the then current King Farouk and the British continued occupation of Egypt.

The story is written as a modern epistolary based on emails between Ali Hassan and his grandson. Ali’s grandson, raised in the USA, has joined a group in the Middle East that are fighting a “holy war.” Desperate to have his grandson return he reaches out via email in attempt to share his own story that has never been shared with his family. It turns out he too participated in a political rebellion in 1950’s Egypt, that somehow involved the filming of the Ten Commandments and Cecil B. DeMille. I read historical fiction to learn about historical events and places through a good story and I have to say this was a good story. The pacing and characters you encounter makes the story feel a bit like an action film itself but with more time to feel the emotions, confusion, and danger.

The book has some very difficult moments with explicit descriptions of torture, making for some tough but necessary reading. The reminder of the dangers the lack of respect for other humans and the radicalization of ideas is not just in our past but in our present.

My only issue is once again the write up of the book does not do it justice – in fact promises something it does not give, “...a sweeping intergenerational saga...” I am running into this more and more with book descriptions, these flippant and misused attention-grabbing grandiose buzzwords target the wrong audiences and therefore lead to disappointed readers. This in fact is really one man’s story that is being mirrored by his grandson’s story. You do not get much of the grandson’s story, but it follows a familiar path and since it is based in modern day the reader can fill in the blanks.

However, this is still a great historical fiction novel with lots of insight into a part of the world I embarrassingly know very little about even though their history has now crossed with my present. In addition to the political historical references, movie history buffs might find the appearance of well-known historical figures of old Hollywood an appropriate and great addition to the story. Once again it has taken a fictional story to get me started down a path of education and discovery and for that I thank Mr. Blauner.

Disclaimer:
My copy of Picture in the Sand was provided through Net Galley and Minotaur Books in exchange of this review.

I enjoyed this story immensely. The characters were well-developed and had a realistic quality that is appealing to any audience. It is a denser read and not for someone looking for a quick read. Personally, I enjoyed the pacing and the detail within the book. Reading about Ali Hassan's experiences and pairing them with his grandson made for a fascinating read and a wonderful example of stellar storytelling.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. All opinions expressed within this review are my own.

I really liked this one and learning about Egypt during this time period made me do research on my own about the country at that time .
I felt it was engaging and wonderfully written and that Egypt was like it’s on character
This to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me review the book

Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for gifting me a digital ARC of this beautifully-written book by Peter Blauner - 5 stars!

In the form of letters written to his grandson, Alex, Ali Hassan tells Alex about his own past, hoping to persuade Alex to come home. Alex had been accepted to an Ivy League university when he left home and refused contact with his parents, instead taking up with a radical Muslim group fighting what they consider to be a holy war in the Middle East. Ali tells Alex about his time as a young man in Egypt with his eyes on a movie career in Hollywood. When Cecil B. DeMille comes to make The Ten Commandments, Ali gets a job as an assistant. However, he unwittingly gets involved in political unrest, threatening his and his family's lives.

This was such a fascinating read - Ali's letters tell of a time of political turmoil and how easy it is to be persuaded to do the wrong things, while we alternately read Alex's letters to his grandpa showing him following a similar destructive path. As one who always watched The Ten Commandments on Easter, I enjoyed reading about the making of the film and the portrayal of the actors and director. All of these characters in this book are so well developed; I felt so much for them. I also loved the relationship between Ali and Alex, a connection so different from a parental one. Ali was desperate to get Alex to learn from his mistakes, but did it in a way that let Alex find his own way back. Highly recommended - a blockbuster of a story!

Alex has left his family and joined an extremist Islamic group. The only person in the family he is in contact with is his grandfather. It is between these emails that his grandfather, Ali’s past unfolds. Ali wanted to be a Hollywood movie mogul. He got his chance when Hollywood came to town to film The Ten Commandments. But, the revolution was in full swing and Ali gets caught up in a political web which changes his life.

I have not read too many books about Egypt, especially one set in this time period. I enjoyed learning about this time in history. I never knew much about the revolution in this country. Add in the big Hollywood names of Cecil B. DeMille and Charlton Heston and this book really hit its mark.

This story had some great, intense, heartbreaking moments and wonderful history. The only reason for the 4 star rating is the every day details seemed abundant. But, that should not stop you. This is a story not to be missed!

Need a good Hollywood noir story…THIS IS IT! Grab your copy today.

I received this novel from the publisher for a honest review.

Terrific read. Ali slowly tells his story to his grandson Alex, who has left his family and country behind to join the jihad in an effort to lure Alex back to the US. Alex has only known his grandfather as the one eyed owner of a filling station but he's so much more. Born in Egypt, Ali was at university and working at the local hotel with his parents when Cecil B. DeMille comes to town to film the Ten Commandments, just as Nasser seizes power. Ali snares a job as DeMille's assistant and driver, a position that leads to tragedy. He's in love with Mona, gets her a job on the set, and then things begin to spin apart as his cousin Sharif pulls him into his own political activities. Ali finds an unlikely ally in Garfield, a man he envied but who is willing to endure torture. There are periodic emails from Alex- who wavers in his commitment, is given a wife, and who helps create a video game site to recruit others. I liked this for so many reasons- for the peek at the filming of the Ten Commandments, the political atmospherics, the tender relationship between All and Alex are only the start. These characters sing out from the page. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. Highly recommend.

Alex, Egyptian-American grandson of Ali Hassan, has left the U.S to join modern day terrorists in the Middle East. How could this happen? And why? Alex had just been accepted to a top University and his future was full of hope. All Ali can do now is to tell Alex the story of his past life in hopes of convincing him to not make the same mistakes he made as a young man. Will this be enough? Based on true events, you will find the story filled with suspense and wonderful historical notes.