From award-winning journalist Jane Ferguson, an unflinching memoir of ambition and war—from the Troubles to the fall of Kabul.
In Northern Ireland in the 1980s and ‘90s, war was a secret, and young Jane Ferguson wanted to know the truth. For her, war was called the Troubles, bomb threats and military checkpoints on the way to school were commonplace, and an uncle’s gunshot wound in IRA crossfire was disguised as a cow kick. Jane developed a penchant for asking questions that cut through this culture of silence, while the unspoken tension in her village exploded into abuse and rage at home. An opportunity to study Arabic in Yemen after college came as a great relief, a ticket to a different, adventurous life—and to the very center of the story.
Ferguson has since reported from nearly every war front around the globe—from Yemen and Syria during the Arab Spring, Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul, and Ukraine during Russia’s 2022 invasion—but her rise to the highest ranks of journalism has been anything but ordinary. As a scrappy one-woman reporting team, a borrowed camera her only equipment, networks often told her she simply had the wrong accent, even the wrong appearance. Still, her ambition to build a life in journalism on her own terms thrust her into harm’s way time and again. While other reporters chased “bang bang shoot ‘em up” stories, a different set of questions guided Ferguson’s work, ones that gave faces and names to the people experiencing these conflicts. In the face of grave violence and suffering, giving voice to civilian lives seemed a small act of justice, no matter the risks.
For fans of Samantha Power, Marie Colvin, and Ariel Levy, Ferguson’s bold debut chronicles her unlikely journey from bright, inquisitive child to intrepid war correspondent from the front lines of the most dangerous conflicts and dire humanitarian crises of our time. With an open-hearted humanity we rarely see in conflict stories, No Ordinary Assignment shows what it means to build an authentic career against the odds.
Review
I often find myself interested in reading autobiographies or memoirs of people doing things that I would or could never do. This is one of them. Jane Ferguson takes readers from her childhood in Northern Ireland with difficult (to put it mildly) parents through her years establishing herself in a job she knew she was born to do – finding ways to get to and report on war torn areas of the world and then get back home alive.
Anxiety – from living in The Troubles with the clashes of British soldiers and IRA gunmen plus bombs going off – follows Jane as she spends a scholarship year at a prestigious US boarding school, earns money at a chicken plant (CW- graphic), then Uni in York before finally traveling to Yemen to learn Arabic and fall in love with the country. None of that, though, would get her the job she coveted as a journalist.
It’s her own hustling and busking that lands her a cushy job in Dubai before she chucks it all by getting caught doing a side-hustle for another network. Al Jazeera English sends her to war torn Syria and Cairo (CW- Graphic) among other places before a shift in management coverage convinces her to quit. From then on, she must ferret out possible stories and angles then sell a network on paying her for her story. She makes a name for herself going to places that few others will, mostly based on local contacts who can help her past authorities determined to bar journalists.
It takes a certain type of person to feel the urge and answer the call to shine a light on what is going on in places where people are shooting at you and bombs are going off. Ferguson had that drive from early in her life when she saw that female journalists were among the few women to whom men would (sometimes) listen. To do her job, she often had to push down her (natural) fears and anxiety and deal with imposter syndrome. She also details an up-and-down romantic relationship as well as her love for various places such as Beirut, Sana’a, and Kabul.
As a blonde Westerner, she was often approached by people who wanted to show her things and tell her their truths which few other networks would cover. Jane was mainly interested in the people on the street rather than the “bang bang.” She does some soul searching and introspection about why she felt driven to do this job and fights with despair that she didn’t do the situations and people justice. The book is an intense first hand view of a job I couldn’t do and the toll it sometimes takes on those who do. B
~Jayne
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Jayne
Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there’s no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.
