Review Jackie Spinner, Tell Them I Didn’t Cry, A Young Journalists Story Of Joy, Loss, And Survival In Iraq, Scribner, 2006

 

 

Jackie Spinner was a reporter for the Washington Post in Iraq from 2004-05. Her book Tell Them I Didn’t Cry, A Young Journalists Story Of Joy, Loss And Survival In Iraq gets its name from the time the author was almost kidnapped. She wanted the staff to know that she never cried when men were trying to take her. Her writing is like a journal about her time working in Iraq along with letters from her twin sister about how her trip was affecting her family.

 

In the introduction Spinner talks about how working in Iraq dramatically changed from the start of 2004 to the beginning of 2005. When she first arrived she was able to travel around most of Baghdad where she was based and interview Iraqis. By the end of her assignment the Western press was mostly secluded in their office compounds because of the growing violence. That threat was constant like one time when her name got into the Iraqi press and insurgents were offering $5,000 to anyone that knew where she lived.

 

The Washington Post staff is mostly how Spinner tells the story of Iraqis. One translator Luma became like a sister to her. She wore Western clothes, refused to wear a headscarf, and wanted to go to America so she could be free. One day she disappeared taking up a job being a translator for the U.S. Army. She ended up being killed in an accident. Spinner looked at Luma as a tragic story of how Iraq could change.

 

Another interesting topic Spinner covers is how her stories were received back in the United States. She got a constant stream of hate emails and comments on blogs from people who thought she was not reporting the truth on Iraq. Many people said she was only covering the bad things that happened. Some suggested that she just heard rumors at hotel bars and wrote about them. This incensed the author especially because she didn’t respond to her critics. She felt like she was risking her life every day to report on Iraq and people back home just wanted happy stories to satisfy their political views.

 

Tell Them I Didn’t Cry is an enjoyable book to read. It gives another Western perspective on the U.S. occupation besides historians and U.S. troops. There are some Iraqi stories told but it really is focused upon Spinners’ thoughts and feelings about working in Iraq. It captures the period of transition from just after the U.S. invasion to when the insurgency took off before the civil war began.

 

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