A beautiful novel whose only fault is ending too soon.
A novel about sexuality, acceptance, and Middle Eastern culture.
National Jewish Book Award winner Fallenberg’s (When We Dance on Water, 2011, etc.) most recent novel starts when an unnamed narrator decides to write a letter to Adam, his old college friend, who's sitting across the room from him. Months before, the narrator arrived at Adam’s doorstep in a "middling city of America," providing no explanation as to why, how, or for how long. Launching into a 100-plus-page letter, the narrator explains the events that led up to his arrival. The narrator was visiting Tel Aviv with his friends when he met Uzi, a spice merchant whose smell was “meaty, truly pungent and ripe.” Compelled by the pheromones Uzi was releasing, the narrator decides to leave his friends and stay with Uzi. Immediately, the two engage in an animalistic, uncontrollably sexual relationship: “We were a mess, a heaving, sweating, panting, quivering mess.” Uzi, the typically macho laborer, welcomes the narrator into his home, to the surprise of his family, namely his ex-wife, who lives across the property. But homosexuality, however stigmatized it may be in Israel, doesn’t seem to be that important to Uzi’s family—their main concern is why now. Uzi and the narrator lead a typical life from then on, with the narrator spearheading the expansion of Uzi’s spice business. Everything is going well until Ibrahim, the son of Uzi’s friend, arrives for an apprenticeship. Filled with jealousy and resentment, the narrator progressively loses his mind. Fallenberg’s story is one of heartbreak in which guilt and feelings of inadequacy ultimately cause his characters’ downfalls. Written entirely in the form of a letter to Adam, the story is magnetic, drawing readers in from the first crotch-grab to the last goodbye. But more important, this is a complicated study of the ways in which religious heritage—from codes of honor to familial expectations—interacts with business and acceptance, family and lovers, and self-realization.
A beautiful novel whose only fault is ending too soon.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59051-943-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Other Press
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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