Kim Ghattas revisits Malcolm Kerr’s killing in new book

Kim Ghattas’s new nonfiction book, The Best Kind of American, goes on sale October 13, returning to the 1984 killing of American University of Beirut president Malcolm Kerr. Publisher Henry Holt describes the work as an examination of one family’s unanswered questions alongside the conflicts that reshaped Lebanon and American involvement in the Middle East. ^[1]

The question behind the book

Kerr was assassinated outside his office on January 18, 1984. The publisher says the circumstances and motive remain incompletely resolved more than four decades later. Ghattas uses the killing as the starting point for a broader account connecting the Kerr family with Lebanese political factions, regional powers and successive American administrations. ^[1]

In an October 10 interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, Ghattas said the project began after Kerr’s widow, Ann, emailed her. Ann wanted to know whether research for an earlier book had uncovered new details. Ghattas said she had initially thought the case was closed, then found that important questions remained. ^[2]

A family’s search and a regional history

Ghattas told NPR that Kerr had been born in Beirut to American parents and viewed leading the university during wartime as a mission. She described him as attached to the region while remaining capable of criticizing both it and American foreign policy. Her account places a personal loss within a larger history of competing interests in Lebanon. ^[2]

The author also described how Kerr’s son Andrew encountered a classified document while working as a junior National Security Council staffer during the Clinton administration. According to Ghattas, the discovery reopened the family’s search for information and justice. Her description of that process is an account of the book’s investigation, rather than an announcement of a new prosecution. ^[2]

Launch discussion in New York

92NY lists an October 13 conversation between Ghattas and NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel at 8 p.m. Eastern. The event is scheduled at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 150 East 91st Street, with both in-person and streaming options. Organizers say the discussion will cover her investigation and the unfinished history of Lebanon’s civil war. ^[3]

The event biography identifies Ghattas as a former BBC reporter whose work has covered the Middle East and Washington, and as the author of Black Wave and The Secretary. The new release extends that work through the Kerr family’s experience, with the publisher framing the book as historical investigation rather than a final resolution of the assassination. ^{[3] [1]}