The Falcon Diaries
“An illuminating memoir of an American abroad that captures Arab and Israeli relations at a particular moment in time...it offers many insights into the Jordanian point of view that readers may not have encountered elsewhere.”
- Kirkus Reviews
The Falcon Diaries was featured in The New York Review of Books.
In the late 2000s, Emily Lodge, an Emmy-award-winning journalist and granddaughter of famed diplomat Henry Cabot Lodge, moved to Jordan where she discovered the true story of what happened to the families dispossessed of their lands in Palestine/Israel.
Unsure of what to expect from an area steeped in social, political, religious and military conflicts, Emily encountered a sophisticated culture consisting of serene people, who were keenly aware of their region’s history of broken promises, displacement and death, yet willing to compromise in order to live their lives in peace. For these Arabs, fairness rules in the face of injustice and inclusiveness is much preferred to jihad.
By the time she left Jordan, it was clear to Emily that Palestinians are credible partners for peace. They are just like your neighbors, and more importantly, they are people that you want to be your neighbors.
Emily captured her experiences in diary entries, including interviews with Israeli Ambassador, Jacob Rosen, who clings to the status quo, and Prince Hassan, whose goal is a regional solution.
Her writings are being published as The Falcon Diaries: a rich tapestry of sights and sounds that brings the reader into the heart of the Arab world, and provides a much needed antidote to the caricatures typically portrayed by Western media.
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Rave Reviews For The Falcon Diaries
"When her husband was appointed director of an American company in Amman, Jordan, Emily Lodge kept a diary of their day-to-day life in high Jordanian circles not often open to strangers. What she found surprised her, and surprises us. It was not always safe, and not always fun, but always fascinating. Only someone with Ms. Lodge’s sociable charm and open mind could have been taken as a friend into the privileged and revealing workings at the center of an often closed Islamic kingdom. I was riveted. Emily Lodge is the author of The Lodge Women, Their Men and their Times, a history of the remarkable Lodge family, which explains, among other things, how she came by her astute observations about government and manners."
—Diane Johnson, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and writes for The New York Review of Books
"Emily Lodge spent eight years living in Jordan from the late 2000s. The Falcon Diaries is an intimate, often enlightening account of her experiences in her first year there. She had access to Jordan’s rarefied social elite, she could have taken it easy, lived the high life, but with the instincts and training of a journalist and writer, Lodge was determined to gain an understanding of the country’s and the wider region’s history and culture, of the realpolitik of the Middle East in the early 21st century. She spent a lot of time talking — and listening — to many people around her, those in power and those far from it, and not least those with personal experience of the various stages of the Palestinian diaspora. She learned of the realities of everyday life, immersing herself in the language and the extraordinarily rich history of Jordan and its neighbors. The result of this is not merely an engaging and revealing journal but something ultimately — very specifically indeed in the book’s extended coda — rather more ambitious, profound and meaningful, namely an attempt to contribute towards a solution to that great intractable problem our age: how to bring peace to the Middle East."
—Karl French, writer and editor
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