SOUND AND FURY IN SYRIA

In The Morning They Came for Us:

Dispatches from Syria (Liveright),

V.F. contributing editor janine di

Giovanni recalls how "in Paris, just

before the Arab Spring, I

met the most elegant

people who were proud

to be flying to Aleppo to

buy art and furniture."

Di Giovanni knew Syria

before it became

a siege state, before "the recipe of

warriors changed every day," before

what was once the end of the Silk

Road seemed more like the end of

civilization. The Morning They Came

for Us moves from a cosmopolitan

"bubble of parties" in 2011 to "the

aftermath of a barrel bomb" today as

di Giovanni observes slaughter and

rape with the equal (if occasionally

opposing and heartbreaking)

empathies of war correspondent and

mother. One day a young journalist

named Steven Sotloff

asks if she wishes she

"hadn't gotten obsessed

with Syria." Less than

two years later ISIS

would release a video

of his beheading.

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LEA CARPENTER