Family of Shadows: A Century of Murder, Memory, and the Armenian American Dream

Combining the historical urgency of The Burning Tigris, the cultural sweep of Middlesex, and the psychological complexity of Bending Toward the Sun, Garin K. Hovannisian's Family of Shadows is a searing history of Armenia, realized through the lives of three generations of a single family. In Family of Shadows, Hovannisian traces the arc of his family's changing relationship to its motherland, from his great-grandfather's flight to America after surviving the Armenian Genocide to his father Raffi Hovannisian's repatriation and subsequent climb to political prominence as the head of the Heritage Party. Hovannisian's articles on Armenian issues, including the Genocide, the Armenian Diaspora, and the challenges of post-Soviet statehood, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Armenian Observer, Ararat, and numerous other publications.

This epic historical memoir chronicles a century of struggle and survival:

• The Armenian Genocide: Follow Kaspar Hovannisian, a fourteen-year-old boy who survives the death marches of 1915 and escapes the Ottoman Empire to build a new life in a new world.
• The Armenian American Dream: Witness a family's success in California, from the vineyards of Tulare to the halls of UCLA, as they navigate their identity between two worlds.
• Soviet Armenia: Experience the reality of life behind the Iron Curtain and the first sparks of a democratic movement that would challenge Moscow and inspire a nation.
• Repatriation and Rebirth: Join Raffi Hovannisian as he returns to the motherland to become the first Foreign Minister of a newly independent Armenia, facing the challenges of war and statehood.