Book review: It's What I Do by Lynsey Addario, photojournalist

It’s What I Do
by Lynsey Addario
Penguin Press

Photojournalists, particularly those who repeatedly cover war zones, have a reputation for being tough, fearless, sometimes cavalier and often lucky in a way that defies logic. So, it's striking the number of times Lynsey Addario writes in her memoir, It's What I Do, how often she was scared or had had enough of the misery she had to cover.

It's reassuring to know that Pulitzer Prize winners and people who win MacArthur "genius" grants have moments of vulnerability, too. Her ability to capture that vulnerability in her subjects, often in extreme circumstances, has propelled Addario to the top of her competitive field.

Addario's memoir details the physical risks she faces in conflict zones with her colleagues, including local men hired to drive and translate for her. She survived a serious car crash and being kidnapped twice while on assignment; two drivers did not.

She also exposes the risks particular to women working in journalism. Addario gets the shots while enduring casual sexual harassment, the fear of that harassment escalating to assault and the horror of that assault when it happens. She also writes about fighting off the fear of being perceived as weak if she points out the harassment to her male colleagues, who are oblivious to what's happening to her as they compare images, because this sort of thing never happens to them.

Addario writes most, though, about the other side of war: attending the funerals of friends and colleagues, the fights with editors over images that make faraway readers uncomfortable, and the strained relationships with people who don't work on deadline.