As Christians in a Moslem world, the Armenians had been persecuted and discriminated against for hundreds of years. And the larger world had indeed been silent about the cataclysmic events that occurred between April and October 1915, when some 1.2 million Armenians were deported from their homes by the Turkish Government and sent on a death march into the Syrian desert with no food or water. Silence was also the rule for the Armenian-American family of Peter Balakian, the author of this fascinating and affecting memoir. The title of this memoir refers to a parable told to the author by his grandmother.
Fate rejects the lamb and accepts the dog.
The world is not what you think. Peter Balakian grew up during the palmy, optimistic years of 1950's and 60's suburbia. His memories of suburbia are loving and nostalgic, a time of childhood innocence infused with the raucous music of Elvis and Little Richard, the steady whir of power lawn mowers and the gratifying roar that emanated from the television set as the bats of the New York Yankees cracked balls into the stands. The Aroosians, wealthy merchants from the Armenian hinterlands of Diarbekir, would not be upstaged by the intellectual Balakians of Constantinople. Two other aunts, Gladys and Lucille, businesswomen on Wall Street, lived with his grandmother.