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Black Dog of Fate is set in the affluent New Jersey suburbs, where Peter Balakian, the first-born son of his generation grew up in a close, extended family, and was immersed in the ideal of a 1950s and 60s all-American boyhood defined by rock ‘n roll, the New York Yankees, and adolescent pranks. But, beneath this sunny world lay the dark specter of the trauma his family and ancestors had experienced--the Turkish government’s extermination of more than a million Armenians in 1915, including many of Balakian’s relatives--in the century’s first genocide. In elegant, witty, and poetic prose, Black Dog of Fate charts Balakian’s growth and awakening to the facts of his ancestral history and to the horrifying aftermath of the Turkish government’s continued campaign to cover up one of the worst crimes ever committed against humanity. On this compelling personal journey, Balakian learns to interpret the folkloric-myths, wild metaphors, and painful silences of his own family, and he introduces us to a remarkable family of matriarchs and merchants, physicians, a bishop, a heroic genocide survivor-grandmother, and his aunts, two well-known figures in the world of literature. Balakian, a prize-winning poet and critic, moves with ease from childhood memory to history to a poet’s coming of age. In unearthing the secrets of a family’s past, Black Dog of Fate is also the story of what it means to be an American. MORE PRAISE FOR BLACK DOG OF FATE “A prose masterpiece from an acclaimed poet. . . . Some memoirs are compelling for the private dramas they make public, others for the historic events to which they give witness and still others for the quality of their prose and its structuring. Precious few excel at all three—Nabokov’s Speak, Memory remains the standard. Now Balakian ups the ante a bit, writing a memoir that not only compels in all three areas but that carries within it an urgent and timely appeal that a dark moment in world history not be revised out of existence.” “A landmark chapter in the literature of witness. . . . It is one of the book’s many triumphs that the incredible suffering endured by Balakian’s ancestors . . . finds a redeeming correlative in the touching lyricism and beauty of his style. . . . Out of silence he has crafted something new.” “Richly imagined and carefully documented. . . . Asks painful questions of all of us.” “[An] engrossing and poignant memoir.” “Balakian writes with power and poignancy, confronting his past with justified outrage and transforming that outrage into art. An exceptional work.” “It starts as a graceful Holden Caufield-like memoir of youth . . . and endsas . . . a cry from the heart, transcribed with enormous literary skill that directly penetrates the reader’s emotions and uniquely conveys how and why the [Armenian Genocide] still grips the Armenian diaspora so ferociously.” “This will be a classic among memoirs for what it tells us about the Armenian-American story, about the reclaiming of unspeakable personal and family truths, and about the emergence of a powerful poetic voice.” “His book alternately amuses, charms, and horrifies . . . is inti-mate, funny, sad, and very serious.” “An essential American story of the author’s upbringing. . . . “Balakian has written a sort of Armenian Roots . . . he offers a picture of a suburbia with a secret. . . . In the retrieved testimony of [his ancestors] we can feel a stinging reproach that the 1919 promise of international law—to say nothing of international jus-tice—remains unkept.” “Balakian weaves the dark horrors of the Armenian past into his story of middle class America . . . a beautiful book. . . . Balakian has given voice to a people who were nearly destroyed and told a story that all should read.” “Balakian, a gifted poet, knows exactly how to bring the pain of the past into the landscape of the present. Passionate and endearingly personal . . . an extraordinary book.” “Only once in a generation a work of literary accomplishment ap-pears that poses the difficult questions so forcefully and succeeds in answering them with clarity and eloquence.” “How Balakian straddles these two worlds and eventually discov-ers his rich and tragic heritage forms the basis of his eloquent memoir.” “A deeply moving account of a modern American poet’s discovery of genocide—that of his own people, the Armenians. Balakian’s ele-gant style does not mask a burning anger over a holocaust the world has chosen to ignore.” “The eldest grandson of one survivor remembers. And it honors the memory of Nafina Aroosian that Peter Balakian tells her story and his with passion and with grace.” “This is a profound and eloquent book that traces the transmuta-tion of a painful history into the stuff of literature and moral en-gagement.” “[One of the] best memoirs of the summer. . . . “All the best memoirs belong to the literature of quest. They are |