This is a sloppily assembled work. What Kaufman does best is convey the brittle camaraderie of the reservists; a story...
The experiences of an American Jew fighting as a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces.
The matches of the title are soldiers, in IDF lingo. For his first novel, Kaufman (Jew Boy, memoir) has drawn on his own tours of duty with the IDF. His protagonist, Nathan Falk, is a twenty-something New York Jew with Israeli citizenship who has completed two years of regular service and now serves at least a month each year in the reserves, mostly in the Gaza Strip or on the Israeli/Egyptian border. He details a scary encounter with an ultra-orthodox settler who predicts an eventual war between the Jews; a house-to-house search in which Falk makes an important arrest; the destruction of a house owned by the parents of a terrorist; and the nighttime killing of desert infiltrators, thanks to the fine work of Bachshi, the IDF’s top Bedouin tracker. Kaufman’s passages on Bedouin culture are the most interesting, even if Bachshi sounds like the generic Voice of the Desert. Meanwhile, what is Falk up to the rest of the year? Hard to say. He lives alone in a Jerusalem apartment and balls Maya, wife of his best friend Dotan, off fighting in Lebanon (Falk never claimed to be nice). All three are part of a “bohemian cultural elite,” but we don’t know how Falk supports himself. At one point he has a crisis of conscience and decides “ I didn’t want to hurt (Arabs) anymore in order to survive;” he rushes to Jerusalem to be comforted by Maya, who then disappears from the story, along with the guilty conscience. The chronology is hard to follow, and by the final third, which consists of snapshots of reservists dealing with Palestinian civilians, “all guilty until proven innocent,” all novelistic coherence has evaporated.
This is a sloppily assembled work. What Kaufman does best is convey the brittle camaraderie of the reservists; a story collection or another memoir might have served his purposes better.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2005
ISBN: 0-316-10664-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Back Bay/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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