"Skin Deep" - My Latest Book Review Published by "InTheFray Magazine"

In October 2010, InTheFray Magazine published "Skin Deep," my book review of The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans. Click here to read my review.


The Lampshade: A Holocaust Detective Story from Buchenwald to New Orleans by Mark Jacobson
Hardcover, 368 pages
Published by: Simon & Schuster
Price: $26
Publication Date: September 2010


When journalist Mark Jacobson comes into possession of a human skin lampshade purportedly made at a Nazi concentration camp and pilfered from an abandoned house in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, he undertakes a journey of discovery to answer the "unsettling questions" of how the lampshade came into being and how it ended up in New Orleans. It is a trip besieged by the emotional and the incomprehensible, a voyage that leads to the essential and appalling awareness of humankind's capacity for savagery and unrestrained slaughter.

The Lampshade is a multifarious, indelible, and haunting tale full of silences and unknowns. To tell it—and tell it well—Jacobson delves into world history, American history, autobiography and biography, philosophy, religion, science, and current events, recognizing that the sweep and scope of human history is shaped by the interconnectedness of all things. Jacobson's skillful and excellent portrayal of this fundamental, cosmic relationship ensures, in turn, that The Lampshade serves as a commentary on the universality of humankind.

The sheer ghastliness of The Lampshade often requires a moment or two of reverential pause. Bewilderment looms and sadness sets in. But that is how it should be. Jacobson's formidable rendering of unchecked malevolence penetrates. And in the end, the poignant, abhorrent story of the lampshade heightens consciousness and demands contemplation.