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"Journey into Darkness" with the New York times as they share their take on the "narrative with tremendous power."

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She moved on, but decided to try paying for her travels as a novice photojournalist like Brennan. She returned to Afghanistan, then journeyed to Baghdad after landing a dodgy job as an on-camera correspondent for a television channel financed by the Iranian government. This earned the guileless Lindhout the disdain of the Baghdad-based press corps. When other reporters discovered her live stand-ups for the Iranians on YouTube, in which she, "quick-talking and naïve," had criticized their work, she decamped to Kenya, a jumping-off point for journalists covering the war in Somalia.

Lindhout hoped to make her bones in Somalia, "the most dangerous country on earth." She also persuaded Brennan - now divorced - to join her. She missed him, she writes, but "the reality was that I was starting to need Nigel, or somebody, to come with me and share the costs." At this moment in the memoir, Lindhout is not an especially sympathetic character. She seems more interested in the rush than in the work she's doing, and it's unclear what besides ego and adrenaline are propelling her. Yet absolutely nothing she does or has done up to this point renders her responsible for the brutality that followed, or can explain how she emerged with unfathomable grace and wisdom.

In mid-August 2008, when she and Brennan landed in the wrecked city of Mogadishu with no clue what they were doing and no assignments to speak of (other than a travel column Lindhout was writing for her hometown paper, The Red Deer Advocate), their already tenuous situation took an immediate turn for the worse. Their experienced guide fobbed them off on an assistant. After a few frustrating days, they set out one afternoon to visit a hospital and camp for displaced people, led by a singular Somali doctor. On the road, disaster struck in the form of heavily armed gunmen, who dragged them into captivity.

It's here that the narrative begins to gain its tremendous power. As Lindhout's external landscape turns upside down, her inner one sharpens and deepens. From their first hours as prisoners, she and Brennan were forced to negotiate their uncertain survival with a shifting array of captors possessed of differing manners and agendas. Heartbreakingly, Lindhout called each man "brother"; she hoped that through her scant command of Islam she could connect with them. She dreaded being separated from Brennan and raped. Her illusion of control had yet to shatter as she racked her brain for ways to communicate: "If only we could hit upon the right strategy for talking to the men holding us."

There was no such strategy. On learning she was being held for a ransom of $1.5 million, Lindhout despaired. She knew her impoverished family could do little to save her. So without Brennan's assent, she announced to the militants that the two of them wanted to convert to Islam.

Conversion was, at first, a gambit to save their lives. Reading and memorizing the Koran, however, became a form of solace. They studied not as believers, but as prosecutorial lawyers looking for chapters and verses with which to make a case for their safety. As Lindhout puts it: "I read the book in hopes of using their religion to talk my way out." She searched desperately to find words that forbade her captors from violating her. Instead, she discovered verses that suggested the opposite. The first of her rapists arrived.

There's no self-pity or grandiosity in these pages. The rage and self-hatred born out of bad decisions and bad luck have long since burned into a clear-hearted attempt to record the cruelties Lindhout endured. (She has since created a foundation that seeks to educate Somali youth.)

In the cleanest prose, she and Corbett allow events both horrific and absurd - like Lindhout's diligently translating, from a smartphone, a message to jihadis from Osama bin Laden - to unfold on their own. Lindhout's resilience transforms the story from a litany of horrors into a humbling encounter with the human spirit.

To withstand her anguish, she recited a catalog of the small gifts for which she was grateful: "my family at home, the oxygen in my lungs," the fact that "Jamal set my food down on the floor instead of throwing it at me." She practiced compassion for her captors even after they gang-raped her, an episode she recounts with characteristic restraint, rendering it all the more terrible for what is left unsaid: "Together, they crossed into a darker place, where there was no retrievable dignity for anybody. They became guilty, one the same as another. I bled not for hours or days but for weeks afterward."

Most remarkably, in total darkness, Lindhout transcended her starving, feverish body. She built first stairways, then rooms in the stillness of the air above her. She built, as the title suggests, a "house in the sky," where "the voices that normally tore through my head expressing fear and wishing for death went silent, until there was only one left speaking." This voice asks, "In this exact moment, are you O.K.?" She answers, "Yes, right now I am still O.K."

A HOUSE IN THE SKY

373 pp. Scribner. $27.

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'A House in the Sky,' by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett

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She moved on, but decided to try paying for her travels as a novice photojournalist like Brennan. She returned to Afghanistan, then journeyed to Baghdad after landing a dodgy job as an on-camera correspondent for a television channel financed by the Iranian government. This earned the guileless Lindhout the disdain of the Baghdad-based press corps.

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when I hit the rock bottom that exists

beyond the rock bottom

when the hurt is so deep I feel nothing

but the nothing hurts more than the hurt

when the fear of what will happen if I stay

finally outweighs the fear of being alone

I leave

-rupi kaur

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“It was a lesson the world has already taught me and was teaching me still. You don’t know what’s possible until you actually see it.” This is true for many people who travel the world in hopes of seeing different parts of it the way magazines like National Geographic show them to be. The only way to ever truly understand the possibilities of the world, the author teaches readers, is to actually discover them. This is the point the author gets across in her memoir “A House in the Sky.” Amanda Lindhout tells the story of a significant, eye opening part of her life in which she was captured and held hostage by a Somalian fundamentalist group for fifteen months and is able to explain to readers the wonders and dangers of the world by visiting different places to both intrigue and inform the minds of aspiring travelers.

When she began to travel, Amanda Lindhout found herself in Bangladesh. It was here where she was questioned about her travels alone, turned away from many hotels since she was a woman without a husband, and was almost kidnapped by a cab driver prior to punching him in the face and forcing him to return her unharmed. This portion of the memoir allows readers to understand that in certain places in the world such as Bangladesh, women are seen as untrustworthy if they are alone and without a man to depend on. Amanda tells readers “these people were looking at me – with my harmless ponytail and jeans and battered blue backpack, with my hoop earrings and eager-beaver smile – and seeing some sort of threat.” (48). In saying this, she informs readers of the environment and its feelings towards females in Bangladesh based on their relationship with men. Lindhout also says “I grew used to being the only Westerner on the sidewalk, the only woman in a restaurant. I strolled the Hindu market street, where clouds of incense wafted and jewelers in little stalls pounded silver. I stepped into one of the city’s high-domed mosques where, beneath an eggshell mosaic ceiling, rows of kneeling, murmuring men touched their foreheads intently to the floor.” (50). Through this dialogue, she is allowing readers to understand the intriguing parts of a place she has visited (in this case, Bangladesh) to further describe positive, interesting parts of the world, no matter how she was treated being an alone, female traveller.

As told in A House In the Sky, Amanda also travels to Afghanistan after feeling a sense of invincibility. It is in Afghanistan where she is held at gunpoint in the street and forced to surrender the money she had on her. She says “don’t mess with Afghanistan” (60) which implicitly tells readers that the flaws in feeling invincible were exposed in this violent country, and therefore can easily be exposed in other countries similar to Afghanistan. On the other hand, Amanda also describes Kabul in Afghanistan as a “beautiful, wrecked city” by saying “armored military vehicles crawled like reptiles through the streets, alongside tottering donkey carts and bicyclists. Amputees from the Russian war in the 1980s begged in the markets. Women walked the streets cloaked in burkas, looking like giant badminton birdies or floating blue ghosts. Men in keffiyeh scarves sold mobile-phone airtime from beneath umbrellas, next to shops selling shoes and Western-style business suits and kiosks full of Chinese electronics. The older neighborhoods built in to the rock-scabbed terra-cotta hills overlooking the city, with their half-rubbled, flat-roofed mudbrick buildings, looked like something out of the Old Testament, while construction cranes hovered over blocks of gray Soviet-style buildings being renovated with a flush of foreign aid.” (64). It is at this part in the novel where readers learn that there is beauty in ruin, which can be concluded no matter how much chaos. Lindhout is able to help readers see past the disastrous surface of Afghanistan and emphasize the culture and lifestyle that isn’t controlled by violence, which is what she had done.

A key part in Amanda Lindhout’s memoir is where she describes her time as a hostage in Somalia. Prior to being taken, Amanda is able to immerse herself in Somalian life and understand the way citizens operated. This included levels of control, the perception of females through the eyes of males, family life, and religious beliefs. She confirms that the government supports a violent method of control and partakes in the beheading of foreigners and that females are very poorly respected and merely viewed as a method of reproduction. She also learns through her kidnappers that money is just that no matter how it is made, and that you are only good if you are a Muslim, and only a good Muslim if you practice Islam and live by the Quran, which is the general rules for a Muslim. Lindhout says “it was like watching a movie, or standing at the side of something so fast-moving and incomprehensible that it didn’t seem real. But it wasn’t quite that way. It was a toe dipped in the river of other people’s misery. It was upsetting” (122). When Lindhout is taken hostage, she is raped, beaten, starved, isolated, and threatened in various ways. Her family is contacted by her kidnappers and forced to pay every bit of their money in return for Amanda’s life and safety. It is during her time as a hostage that she loses all sense of self-worth and explorative desires. After being raped and beaten countless times, she reached a point where her identity was no longer her own and that this life as a hostage was normal, and she felt she had turned into a product of radicalism and hatred that thrived in Somalia. When she was released she said that “from the cloud of a soft bed, I’d open my eyes in the morning and feel a rush of disbelief. The pillow under my head, my mother sleeping on the couch nearby, a hairbrush set on the table, the vases full of flowers sent by well-wishers, the stretch of morning sky outside my window. All of it seemed illusory, capable of vanishing” (362). After her release, Lindhout was able to reflect on what she had learned and eventually, how the process of her brutal kidnapping and release had taught her the value in sacrifice and in freedom. During her time as a hostage, Lindhout tried to escape and was almost shot, but a Somali women jumped in front of her and took the bullet. This sacrifice kept Amanda alive. At the time, she had conformed to the corrupt lifestyle surrounded her that she had become a key part of and never fully understood the significance of the woman’s sacrifice. Amanda also spends time feeling thankful for the parts of her life she is privileged to have because of her freedom.  In the epilogue of the memoir, Lindhout explains this by saying “being free is something I will never take for granted. I’m grateful for even the smallest pleasures—a piece of fruit, a walk in the woods, the chance to hug my mom. I wake up every day feeling thankful for all that people have given me.” (363) Through this horrible event, Lindhout was able to spiritually reconnect and understand the blessing that is everyday life.

In A House in the Sky, Amanda Lindhout effectively shows readers the beauty that can come of danger as well as the opportunities that arise. In Bangladesh, she learns about how females are viewed in foreign countries as well as how this culture is also very beautiful. In Afghanistan, she learns about the beauty hidden behind chaos. Finally, in Somalia, she learns to be thankful for her freedom and individuality. In experiencing and learning these things, she transfers this knowledge to readers who, in Lindhout’s hopes, will use it and understand these key discoveries of the world.

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A sign post I found extremely distinct and showed a very significant change throughout Amanda Lindhout’s memoir A House In the Sky was the Words of the Wiser sign post. Amanda’s memoir joins us at her hip as she backpacks through many, many parts of the world. At first she is fascinated by what she has learned and discovered, followed by a sense of familiarity with travelling and the countries she has experienced, and finally feels disappointed with the world when she is taken hostage in Somalia for fifteen months.

On page 75, Amanda begins her travels and learns something very important when she says to herself “this is the thing about the exact moment when you get somewhere that required effort: There’s a freeze frame instant of total fulfillment, when every expectation has been met and the world is perfect.” Here, she perceives the world to be a perfect, diverse place that is open to discovery and new, positive experiences. At this point in the memoir and while coming across this sign post, a question I had about the message was just that - what was the message of this memoir? At that point in the reading, it seemed that Lindhout’s perception of the world was all positive, and that everything she had hoped for in regards to travelling was met if not exceeded. Since I know that many negative events occur around the world, I wondered what her message could have been. Towards the end, this question was further examined when Amanda travelled to war-stricken countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and of course Somalia. She learned many things about the world that challenged her initial perception of the world. For example, when she was held at gunpoint in the streets of Afghanistan or discriminated against for being a white, single woman travelling alone, when she was taken and held hostage, and when she was beaten, starved, and raped. I felt this particular stop in this sign post was significant because it indicates how she initially feels about foreign countries, and how this is changed later in the memoir. This was significant enough for the writer to include because this way, it allows readers to understand her views at each important part of her journey. Readers can easily understand that at that moment in time, she really enjoyed travelling and had a positive outlook on her backpacking experience.

A second Words of the Wiser post that I found very significant was when Lindhout says, “you don’t know what’s possible until you actually see it…” on page 152. This is when she travels to Baghdad as a journalist. Lindhout hears nothing but gun shots, bombs, and constant warfare in the streets all while she is sleeping. This automatically made me question what sorts of possibilities there were for Amanda. This question was further examined when Amanda was hired as a journalist and went alongside soldiers during the war in Afghanistan to better report the lives of those in combat. She also got to witness pure hunger and starvation in Mogadishu, friendship and love when she met Nigel, and of course being taken as hostage in Somalia. These are all things Amanda had no knowledge of before they happened, since these possibilities had never crossed her mind. I felt this stop in the memoir was significant because it was a sense of foreshadowing, and implicitly informed readers that there were possibilities to occur later in the book that were unthinkable. Amanda Lindhout needed to include this because not only does it leave readers with a lesson, it also connects with people on a personal level by making the reader also feel as though they “don’t know what’s possible until they actually see it.

A final Words of the Wiser signpost that was very distinct was on page 170, when Amanda was trying to find ways to stay alive under the control of her captors. She tells Nigel, the person she was kidnapped with, “they can’t kill us if we convert.” In saying this, Amanda means that if they convert to Islam, under the Kuran, which is the bible that Muslims must follow, their kidnappers cannot kill them. At the time of reading this, I was concerned and questioned this. This was because her captors already broke rules of the Kuran, such as raping Amanda, so I questioned whether they would break this rule as well. Amanda’s words to Nigel were challenged when she and Nigel tried to escape and they were shot at. Though they were not killed, their lives were intended to be taken, even though they had converted to Islam. This stop was significant because it showed how dictating religious beliefs are in Somalia, and how these beliefs are the difference between life and death. This stop was significant for the writer to include because in other places she visited, she immersed herself in culture and religion because she wanted to. She wore headscarves, prayed with others, and learned languages and religions. In Somalia, the only reason she did this was because she had to, not necessarily because she wanted to.

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JK Rowling said “I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book.” After reading A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout, there were multiple reasons why I decided this was a memoir others should read. Lindhout carefully designed a strong memoir that used older memories to tie into the specific memory being shared, was open and truthful, and left readers with multiple messages to choose from.

Amanda Lindhout uses many memories from her past life to explain her motives and actions in the point in her life that she wrote about. Since Amanda grew up in an environment surrounded in low income and felt confined in her small town, she is able to use this to justify her actions as a travelling adult. Firstly, because her family was poor and lived in a small apartment growing up, Amanda had immediately been looking for ways to make money as an adult. When she started to live on her own, she was employed at a high-end night club which easily supported her travel spending. Without the reference to her younger life, readers would not understand why Amanda felt the need to make so much money as an adult. Also, because Amanda grew up feeling confined and limited to her small apartment and town, this fueled her desire to travel and experience what the world outside her childhood had to offer. She says “the world sucked the dankness out of the carpet in our basement apartment. It de-iced the walkway outside, lifted the lead out of the sky over the plains. When at school a girl named Erica called across the hallway that I was a dirty kid, I shrugged like it didn’t matter. My plan was to move on, far away from my school and street and from girls named Erica” (12). In referring to this memory, readers are able to fully understand Amanda’s motives based on her feelings as a child in this situation.

In A House in the Sky, Amanda is very honest about the many aspects of her life that she speaks about. This allows readers to better connect with her on a personal level, and therefore understand her mindset. This occurs when she is honest about her feelings when travelling in areas such as Afghanistan. Here, she is held at gunpoint and exposed for the foreigner she was not trying to be seen as in the streets. She feels ashamed and very meaningless for a period of time, which shows readers vulnerability and feelings most would relate to. Amanda explains this by saying “I began to cry—months’ worth of tears, it seemed, maybe even years. I felt lost and small. Every instinct seemed to have left me. I couldn’t think of a thing to do but weep. My head scarf and too-short abaya had done nothing to help me blend in. I felt fully unmasked as a foreigner, sobbing in a way I knew must appear ridiculous and childlike but which I couldn’t tamp down. For the first time in ages, I missed home. I missed my mother. I just wanted to be a woman standing on a street that I knew, in a place where I fit in” (65). The vulnerable state Amanda shows readers she was in allows them to fully connect with her and understand her feelings, which increase interest in the book.

By the end of the memoir, A House in the Sky left me with many strong messages based on different experiences that the author had and the way they reacted. An example of this was when Amanda was in Mogadishu prior to being kidnapped. She had seen the extreme lack of food for children in this city and immediately understood the blessings she as a Canadian possessed. She says “this was the first time I’d seen true desperation—people who were not just hungry but starving” (120).  Upon saying this, readers can digest this information and use it to reflect upon their own lives in comparison to the lives she was observing. Another example of a strong message is her continuing love for Nigel Brennen, a man she meets upon her travels, throughout the memoir. Amanda travels to many places as does Nigel, and although they lose contact many times, they always find a way to reunite. This allows readers who choose to feel the message that love has no borders better connect to Amanda, and in turn close the book with this in mind.

Amanda Lindhout uses memories, honesty, and multiple messages to establish a strong memoir and intrigue many different types of readers. Memories are used to connect the past to present motives, honesty allows readers to understand and connect with the memoir more effectively, and messages allow readers to feel humbled and personally connected with the author and their feelings, which in turn build the foundation of a strong, recommended memoir.

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houses in the sky, so beautiful

and full of peace

welcome my pain and discomfort

and longing for freedom

when my body needs a place to rest

and my head needs a place to clear

I go there

even if nobody is home

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The theme that seems to constantly remerge in my life is that my family is my own support system. Often, many things happen to each member of my family which involve heartbreak, drama, and unfortunate events that mix with triumphs, the most amazing successes, and bursts of extreme happiness. This occurs in all families. What I believe makes my family the theme of my life is that we have learned that we will always have each other, no matter what happens outside of us. In this, I find strength and happiness that fuels my every day life. This theme confirms for me that as long as you have faith in your family and their strength, nobody else matters as much. Of course, outer relationships are important and vital, but it is always key to have a support system to fall back on, which is always my family. I think the purpose of this theme in my life is not only because of a blood relation, but because the fact that this theme remerges allows me to continue to understand the blessings that come with a strong, supportive, positive, loving family. I understand that many are less fortunate in this way, so being reminded every day how blessed I truly am helps me to realize the true purpose of family importance remerging.

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There is something so comforting

about the way my sister laughs,

the daintiness of her hands,

and how from not too far of a distance

I see me.

I feel at home in my mothers smile

and safe tangled in the web of her wise words.

To share clothes with your mother is to know love

and forgiveness in all kinds of stains.

My father is my sanity

and the softest voice on the hardest day.

Thank you for singing me the songs of your generation

and not turning the volume too far down when I sing you mine.

My parents are the loudest, proudest voices in the stands

and in the back of my mind.

To have a brother as a protector

and the first boy who knows your true soul

is a blessing not every girl has.

You’re the only one who knows

what food can stop my tears.

Our secret.

My life

in a movie

scene by scene

play-by-play

is my family.