{"product_id":"shutterbabe-isbn-9780375758683","title":"Shutterbabe","description":"\u003cb\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER • The remarkable memoir of an ambitious young photojournalist who went off to war as a twenty-two-year-old girl—and came back, four years and many adventures later, a woman\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e“Eloquent and well observed, not only about the memoirist, but about the world: war, death, photojournalism and, of course, the worldwide battle between the sexes.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 1988, fresh out of Harvard, Deborah Copaken Kogan moved to Paris with a small backpack, a couple of cameras, the hubris of a superhero, and a strong thirst for danger. She wanted to see what a war would look like when seen from up close. Naïvely, she figured it would be easy to filter death through the prism of her wide-angle lens.\u003cbr\u003e        \u003cbr\u003eShe was dead wrong.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin weeks of arriving in Paris, after begging to be sent where the action was, Kogan found herself on the back of a truck in Afghanistan, her tiny frame veiled from head to toe, the only woman—and the only journalist—in a convoy of rebel freedom fighters. Kogan had not actually planned on shooting the Afghan war alone. However, the beguiling French photographer she’d entrusted with both her itinerary and her heart turned out to be as dangerously unpredictable as, well, a war.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eKogan found herself running from one corner of the globe to another, each linked to the man she was involved with at the time. From Zimbabwe to Romania, from Russia to Haiti, Kogan takes her readers on a heartbreaking yet surprisingly hilarious journey through a mine-strewn decade, her personal battles against sexism, battery, and even rape blending seamlessly with the historical struggles of war, revolution, and unfathomable abuse it was her job to record.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the end, what was once adventurous to the girl began to weigh heavily on the woman. Though she had finally been accepted into photojournalism’s macho fraternity, her photographs splashed across the front pages of international newspapers and magazines, Kogan began to feel there was something more she was after. Ultimately, what she discovered in herself was a person—a woman—for whom life, not death, is the one true adventure to be cherished above all.“\u003ci\u003eShutterbabe\u003c\/i\u003e zooms in on  passionate self-discovery.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Eloquent and   well observed, not only about the memoirist, but about the world: war, death, photojournalism   and, of course, the worldwide battle between the sexes.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post Book World\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “A candid account of one woman’s attempt to   claim the spoils of the American feminist revolution under trying circumstances:   alone, abroad, practicing an art that fosters machismo and thrusts her into the midst   of the most paternalistic cultures in the world.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eShutterbabe\u003c\/i\u003e, like all good war stories, is flashy   and exciting, but it also tells the story of a tender-hearted woman who traded war’s   excitement for that of family life.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe   New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eDeborah Copaken Kogan\u003c\/b\u003e is the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e bestselling author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eShutterbabe, The Red Book,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBetween Here and April\u003c\/i\u003e. A contributing writer at \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic\u003c\/i\u003e, and she was also a TV writer on \u003ci\u003eEmily in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e, a performer (The Moth, etc.), and an Emmy Award-winning news producer and photojournalist. Her photographs have appeared in \u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e. Her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSlate\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eO: The Oprah Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eParis Match\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. Her column, “When Cupid Is a Prying Journalist,” was adapted for the \u003ci\u003eModern Love\u003c\/i\u003e streaming series. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.\u003cb\u003eChapter 1\u003cbr\u003ePascal\u003cbr\u003eTHERE'S A WAR GOING ON, AND I'M BLEEDING.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn unfortunate situation, to be sure, but considering it's 2 a.m.,  fresh snow is falling and I'm squished in the back of an old army  truck with a band of Afghani freedom fighters who, to avoid being  bombed by the Soviet planes circling above, have decided to drive  without headlights through the Hindu Kush Mountains over unpaved icy  roads laced with land mines, it's also one without obvious remedy. I  mean, what am I supposed to do? Ask the driver to pull over for a sec  so I can squat behind the nearest snowbank to change my tampon?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI don't think so.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt's February 1989. I am twenty-two years old. My toes are so cold,  they're not so much mine anymore as they are tiny miscreants inside  my hiking boots, refusing to obey orders. In my lap, hopping atop my  thighs as the truck lurches, as my body shivers, sits a sturdy canvas  Domke bag filled with Nikons and Kodachrome film, which I'm hoping to  use to photograph the pullout of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eActually, I have no idea how to photograph a Soviet pullout. Though  this is my second story as a professional photojournalist, I'm still  not clear on what it is photojournalists actually do in a real war.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe first story I covered, the intifadah, was more straightfor-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eward. Organized, even. I'd take the bus early every morning from my  youth hostel in Jerusalem to the nearby American Colony Hotel, where  all the other journalists were staying (and where I eventually wound  up staying when my clothes were stolen from the youth hostel), and  I'd go straight to the restaurant off the lobby. There, I'd  ingratiate myself with any photographer I could find who had  information about the day's planned demos, his own rental car, and a  basket of leftover Danish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter eating, we'd drive around the West Bank and wait for the  Palestinian kids to throw rocks at Israeli soldiers, which we knew  they would do only once a critical mass of journalists had assembled.  Then we'd record the resulting skirmishes onto rolls of color slide  film while trying to evade arrest and\/or seizure of our exposed films  by the soldiers. Next, we'd all rush back to Jerusalem to the Beit  Agron, the Israeli press office, where we would lie about what we'd  just shot (\"religious Jews,\" we'd say, or \"landscapes,\") and get our  government-issued shipping forms stamped and signed accordingly.  Finally, we'd head to the strange little cargo office at the airport  in Tel Aviv to send our film on a plane back to our photo agencies in  Paris. Simple.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut here in Afghanistan the situation is more obscure. I'm alone, for  one, which among other things means I have no one to help me figure  out basic puzzles like how to get my exposed film out of the  mountains. Or how to write captions when no one around me speaks  English, and I have no idea where, exactly, these photos are being  taken or what it is I'm actually seeing. I'm just assuming that at  some point, someplace, I will see some dead or bloody mujahed, or  some dead or bloody Russian soldier, or some mujahed firing off his  Kalashnikovs, or one of those great big Soviet tanks whose names I  can never remember, or, well, something that looks vaguely warlike  that I can shoot and send-again, it's murky to me exactly how-back to  my photo agency in Paris.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI look over at Hashim, who's rearranging blankets, knapsacks and  boxes of ammunition to clear more leg room on the crowded truck bed.  He yanks my maroon nylon backpack from the center of the pile, fills  in the newly empty space with a green metal box, mimes \"Can I sit on  this?\" while pointing at my backpack, and, when I nod yes, he wedges  it into a corner and plops his 180-pound rump right on top of it. A gentle crunching sound ensues, followed almost immediately by the  smell of rubbing alcohol. Shit. My mind races to try to recall what  else, besides the bottle of alcohol, I packed in that outside  zippered pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I remember. My box of Tampax. My one and only box of Tampax.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWell, now. I'm fucked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOblivious, Hashim slowly inhales a Winston cigarette and kneads his  amber worry beads through his ragged fingers. Trained as a  journalist, he's the one Afghani among my forty-seven escorts who  actually speaks a few key English phrases such as \"Food soon,\"  \"Danger, stay in cave,\" and \"Toilet time, Miss Deborah?\" But even  though I know he will probably understand me if I say, \"Please get  off my bag,\" he definitely won't understand \"because my tampons are  exploding.\" And because \"Please get off my bag\" sounds sort of rude,  and because the squishy backpack does look like a comfy place to sit  while all of us are scrunched together on the back of this rickety  old truck heading God knows where, and because my hygiene woes do not  hold a candle to the miseries of jihad, I say nothing. Besides, I'm  covered from head to toe in an electric-blue burka-an Islamic veil,  worn like a Halloween ghost costume-which tends to hinder  communication. Not only does it muffle my speech, it makes it  impossible to guess, for example, that underneath all this rayon,  under my shiny blue ghost costume, I cannot stop crying.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat on earth possessed me to come here?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a word, Pascal. It's Pascal's fault I'm here all alone, and when I  get back to Pakistan I'm going to kill him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE FIRST TIME I noticed Pascal it was from afar, at a café on the  rue Lauriston near the Sygma photo agency. That would have been in  late September 1988, about two weeks after I'd arrived in Paris,  ready to start my life. Every day, I'd go to that same café and spy  on the photojournalists eating lunch there. Most afternoons, I'd  order a croque monsieur and place my\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eportfolio ever so casually on the chair in front of me, hoping that  the sight of my work along with the Leica around my neck would  somehow draw a photographer over to my table. In my fantasy, the  photographer would ask to take a look at the pictures and then, duly  impressed, he'd invite me to come join the rest of his gang at his  table for an île flottante and a round of espressos. I'd sit down  and, after modestly refusing to do so, I'd be persuaded by the other  men-they were all men-to pass my portfolio around the group, one of  whom would be an important photo editor who'd want to send me that  very same afternoon to go cover a war. It didn't really matter which  war because I knew better than to be picky. Any war would do.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that was just the fantasy. In reality, I had to settle for eating  my sandwiches alone and in silence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn that first day I noticed Pascal, he strode like a bulldozer into  the café, pushing in the cool autumn air from the outside with his  angular torso. With what seemed like a single fluid motion, he  unhitched the camera bag from his shoulder, placed it in the pile of  sacks already there on the banquette, greeted his colleagues with an  ironic \"Salut, les potes!,\" pulled off his blue cashmere crew neck,  knotted it around his shoulders, lit a cigarette and sat down to  fondle a menu. His features were sharp and finely chiseled, his eyes  sparkled with what appeared to be a touch of mild insanity, and his  lips had corners that turned up when he smiled, like the Joker's in  Batman. When his steak au poivre arrived, he sliced into it with the  grace of an aristocrat, the tines of his fork facing down then up as  one by one the freshly cut morsels disappeared into his mouth, each  effortless bite punctuating the rhythm of his fraternal chatter. He  is magnificent, I thought.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePascal was an up-and-coming war photographer, and I admired his work.  His pictures didn't just show action, they screamed action. Bombs  exploding, young children crying, soldiers cowering, grimacing,  dying. Exactly the kind of images that I was desperate to start  shooting, if only I could figure out how.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter two weeks of getting nowhere with my portfolio-on-the-chair  ploy and spending far too many francs on croque monsieurs, I realized  I'd been going about it all wrong. With my shaky French, I called the  general number for Sygma and asked to speak to Claude, the editor in  charge of news photos. For whatever reason, perhaps because he  couldn't understand me on the telephone, perhaps because it was a  slow news day, he agreed to a meeting. The next afternoon, when I  arrived at his desk, he started to laugh. \"You're the little girl  from the café,\" he said. A few of the photographers I'd been  stalking, Pascal included, stared and tittered from behind the glass  wall of the photographers' room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs Claude flipped through my portfolio, which was bulging with  photographs of strip clubs and the men who visit them, his eyes  opened wider and he began to shake his head. Then he muttered  \"Putain!\" I knew putain meant \"whore,\" but at the time I did not know  it could also be used idiomatically to mean something more tame, like  \"wow\" or \"holy cow.\" But before I could figure out where the epithet  had been directed, at the strippers or at me, Claude looked up and  said, \"Tu voudrais aller où?\"-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Where would you like to go?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI cocked my head. I crossed my arms. \"Israel,\" I said, more of a dare  than a word.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClaude smiled and, to my amazement, replied, \"Fine.\" We made a deal:  I'd pay for the trip; Sygma would pay for my film and development  costs and then distribute the pictures upon my return. A break. At  last.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I turned to leave, Pascal caught my eye and winked. Whenever I  thought about that wink afterwards, I'd shiver.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe next time I saw Pascal, it was two months later. I'd just arrived  back from Jerusalem. Chip, my colleague and occasional lover, an  American who'd lived in Paris for most of his adult life, invited me  as his date to a dinner party Pascal was throwing with his live-in  girlfriend in Paris. The live-in girlfriend part should have tipped  me off, but then Pascal cornered me in the living room and challenged  me, with his mischievous smirk, to a staring contest. No problem, I  thought. I'll beat him hands down. But after what must have been less  than sixty seconds of locking eyes with the man, I didn't just lose.  I was hypnotized, rendered incapable of higher thought. Or even  medium thought, like \"Stay away. Girlfriend shares his bed.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWithin minutes of losing the staring contest, and battling an  overwhelming urge to sniff Pascal's neck, I cooked up a plan. It was  a simple plan, really. One that would solve what I was beginning to  understand would be a constant dilemma: companionship on the road.  With our cameras in hand, we'd leave Paris, our worldly possessions,  the live-in girlfriend, and my less sexy lovers behind. We'd spend  the next couple of years traversing the planet, bouncing from coup to  insurrection, war to revolution, passing our days shooting pictures  and our nights under the stars, making love to the gentle thrum of  incoming mortar fire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfterwards . . . well, I wasn't exactly sure. I didn't think in afterwards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOkay, so I had an active fantasy life, but this time I could smell  the thoughts as they popped into my head. Or maybe it was just the  big slabs of steak that Élodie, the live-in girlfriend, was preparing  in the kitchen. In any case, while Elodie was off in the kitchen  preparing the meat, while Chip was embroiled in another conversation,  Pascal suddenly turned to me, blew a puff of his cigarette into my  face, and said, \"I'm going to Afghanistan next week. Why don't you  come with me?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI sucked on my own cigarette, choked on it really, and blew the smoke  back into his face. Then, composing myself, I shot him a  conspiratorial smile. \"Sure,\" I said. \"Let's do it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was as simple, and as complicated, as that.National Bestseller; With a new Afterword","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300753232101,"sku":"NP9780375758683","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375758683.jpg?v=1767736589","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/shutterbabe-isbn-9780375758683","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}