The Tightening Dark: An American Hostage in Yemen

by Sam Farran, Benjamin Buchholz

Overview

This riveting memoir follows a Lebanese-Muslim-American and thirty-year US Marine veteran who suffered a six-month ordeal at the hands of a brutal regime in Yemen—and remained loyal to his country through it all.

As air strikes carpeted Yemen's capital, Sam Farran was one of only a few Americans in the war-ravaged country. He was there to conduct security assessments for a variety of international firms. Days after his arrival, he was brutally seized and taken hostage by Houthi rebels. Sam would spend the next six months suffering a horrific ordeal that would test his endurance, his loyalty and his very soul.
 
Every day his captors asked him—as a fellow Muslim—to betray America and his Marine heritage in exchange for his freedom. Would he give in to the Houthis and return to his Middle Eastern roots? In the end--and despite daily threats to his life—Sam found the strength to resist, and came out of his ordeal with an increased sense of being, foremost, a US Marine.
 
The Tightening Dark is an intimate, riveting and inspiring memoir of heroic strength, courage, survival and commitment to country. And a reminder that the best parts of the American dream are the dreamers—those who pledge to being American, regardless of where they are born.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306922725
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	07/27/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Haisam "Sam" Farran was born in Lebanon but moved to the US at age ten. He joined the US Marines and served in many locations and in many roles around the world, culminating as a Warrant Officer working from the Military Attaché Office in Yemen. Sam fell in love with Yemen and returned time and again to work there as an analyst and facilitator for US and other companies. Sam married a Yemeni woman and now lives in Beirut.
 
Benjamin Buchholz served in Yemen as the Chief of Attaché Operations at the US Embassy during and up to the Houthi overthrow of the Yemeni government. He is the author of the novel One Hundred and One Nights, the non-fiction book Private Soldiers, and the forthcoming novel Sirens of Manhattan. Ben lives in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he currently serves in the US Embassy as the Senior Defense Official.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Chapter 1 Idylls of a Lebanese Childhood 3

Chapter 2 A New American 21

Chapter 3 Marine Duty 37

Chapter 4 Interrogator and Attaché 57

Chapter 5 Yemen, Defense Intelligence Agency 73

Chapter 6 Contractor 101

Chapter 7 Arab Spring 113

Chapter 8 National Dialogue 131

Chapter 9 The Houthis Cometh 149

Chapter 10 Bagged 175

Chapter 11 Cell One 193

Chapter 12 Cell Mates 207

Chapter 13 Into a Terrible Rhythm 219

Chapter 14 Rescue Efforts 235

Chapter 15 Captivity's Finale 251

Chapter 16 Homecoming 269

Epilogue 287

Acknowledgments 291

Index 293

Maps

Yemen and the Houthi Advance VIII

Sana'a City VIII

Lebanon 5

Editorial Reviews

05/10/2021

Farran, a former U.S. Marine turned private security contractor, debuts with an in-depth account of the six months he spent in a Yemeni prison in 2015. Born in a small village in Lebanon, Farran joined the Marines after graduating from high school in Dearborn, Mich., and served as an interrogator for the Defense Intelligence Agency and a defense attaché at the U.S. embassy in Yemen, where he ran a program to train the country’s Counterterrorism Unit, or CTU, after 9/11. Following the takeover of the Yemeni government by Houthi rebels in 2014, Farran, who had returned to the country to do a security assessment for British American Tobacco, was kidnapped by members of the CTU and accused of coordinating air strikes on behalf of the Saudi Arabian–led coalition fighting the Houthis. Detained in an “American-built jail on an American-funded base built to combat al-Qaeda,” Farran faced weekly beatings and interrogations while his family and colleagues desperately sought information about his whereabouts. He credits his military training and Muslim faith with helping him to survive the ordeal, which ended when the Omani government negotiated his release. Though the narrative drags in places, Farran offers insightful details about the complex situation in Yemen and the larger forces at play in the Middle East. This is an illuminating look behind the headlines. Agent: Elise Capron, Sandra Dijkstra Literary. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Like so many diplomats and Marines around the world, Sam Farran’s decades’ long career involved tremendous risk. This story captures the riveting nightmare of the dreadful scenario we all train for, and hope never happens: being taken hostage.”—Ali Soufan, author of The Black Banners and prominent terrorism expert

“Sam Farran, like so many other Marines and servicemembers of all kinds, fought to keep America safe, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice. As a Muslim boy who immigrated to Dearborn, Michigan, he represents the best of America, its diversity, its open arms, and its opportunity. Sam's powerful story is worthy of your time.”—Tom Ridge, first Secretary of Homeland Security and 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania

“This gripping story sheds important light on one of the Middle East’s most entrancing but troubled countries. It should be added to the reading list of anyone seeking to understand Yemen’s recent turmoil and its ongoing struggle to emerge from conflict and poverty.”—Matthew H. Tueller, former US Ambassador to Yemen and current US Ambassador to Iraq

“Farran offers insightful details about the complex situation in Yemen and the larger forces at play in the Middle East. This is an illuminating look behind the headlines.”—Publishers Weekly

"A fine memoir and a disturbing hostage drama with a happy ending"

—Kirkus Reviews

"An interesting glimpse into Farran's bifurcated identity."—Booklist

From the Publisher

2021-06-02
A Muslim American Marine veteran recounts his impressive life story and his six-month captivity in Yemen.

A former military officer, interpreter, and security specialist in the Marine Corps, Farran was born in Lebanon, the son of a spectacularly workaholic father who traveled the Arab world as a laborer, opened a restaurant, and accumulated enough money to immigrate with his large family to the U.S., where he continued to labor and open other restaurants. The author was 10 when they arrived in the U.S. Writing with Buchholz, the former chief of attaché operations at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, Farran delivers an amusing account of his culture shock, but mostly he thrived. He became fascinated with the Marines and joined out of high school in 1978, along with a friend from his adopted home of Dearborn, Michigan. He served as a translator/interrogator in the First Gulf War in 1991 and joined the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he was soon promoted to military attaché working out of embassies in Arab-speaking nations—after 9/11, exclusively in Yemen. Leaving active duty in 2004, Farran became a security manager for private companies, returned to Yemen in 2009, and started his own security company. Farran provides an expert portrait of this little-known nation, a fractious collection of rival tribes governed by a long-standing autocrat supported by the U.S. who also trained his army and police force until he was nearly assassinated in 2011 and fled the country. In 2014, Farran left as instability worsened, and the U.S. Embassy closed soon after. Yemen descended into chaos, where it remains as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster.” For reasons that aren’t completely clear, Farran returned in 2015. He was arrested, brutally beaten, imprisoned for six months, and then released, more through the efforts of friends than the U.S. government. He is now safely retired in Lebanon while Yemen remains a dangerous failed state.

A fine memoir and a disturbing hostage drama with a happy ending.

Kirkus Reviews