Revenge: A Story of Hope

While plotting to infiltrate her father's shooter's life, Blumenfeld travels the globe gathering stories of other avengers. Through interviews with Yitzhak Rabin's assassin; members of the Albanian Blood Feud Committee; the chief of the Iranian judiciary; the mayor of Palermo, Sicily; the Israeli prime minister; priests; sports fans; fifth-grade girls; prostitutes; and more, she explores the dynamics of hate -- and the fine line that sometimes separates it from love.

Ultimately, Blumenfeld's target is more complex than the stereotypical terrorist she'd long imagined. In a surprising twist, she gets revenge, but not according to traditional expectations. She discovers a third way, a choice beyond "turn the other cheek" or "an eye for an eye." And with it she answers the age-old question: what is the best revenge?

Amazon.com Review
In 1986, a Palestinian terrorist shot author Laura Blumenfeld’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. “I was looking for the shooter, but I also was looking for some kind of wisdom,” she writes. “I wanted to master revenge.” 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. Blumenfeld’s own emotions aren’t far from the surface of this narrative. When she meets the shooter’s own father, for instance, she asks herself: “Am I supposed to shoot him now?” 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 doesn’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