In Rindsberg’s debut collection, magical realism joins biblical resonance in seven stories populated largely by Israel’s underclass of beggars and madmen.
“There are many people in Tel Aviv.” Despite this unpromising first line, many of the stories that follow filter that unmanageable mass of citizens down to a handful of homeless outcasts. Four stories are told by an unnamed first-person narrator; like the flâneur protagonist common to W.G. Sebald and Teju Cole, this nameless character wanders the streets of Tel Aviv, reporting on his observations in “that city that looks like a smattering of barnacle spread across the bottom of a boat.” In “Spinoza Street,” he asks a homeless man for his history; the resulting story within a story—of falling in love with a country girl, living in a barn until he seems to become half-goat, taking over her father’s farm and marrying her—creatively blends Old Testament stories and pagan mythology. “White Hair Woman” has a Miss Havisham–like crone, “a witch of the streets, Tel Aviv’s silent sorceress,” holding court at the public library and awaiting messages from the lover who jilted her. Rindsberg’s metaphors are strikingly fresh, as in the witch’s “giant upward-dripping stalactite of hair” and “the old man and his steel-wool wife treated me like a burnt dish.” Of the remaining stories set among Tel Aviv’s street people, the best is “On Allenby,” one of only two third-person narratives. Two beggars, Shlomi and Mendel, compete for handouts until Rabbi Sirkin, visiting from America, invites them to the synagogue to illustrate his sermon on charity. The worshippers give a banquet in the men’s honor, provide them with new clothes and even offer them jobs so they can be self-sufficient—at which point they bolt back to their old lives. It succeeds as a humorous folk tale yet cannily exposes how religiosity is often just for show. The final, novella-length story, “Rivkah and Rebecca,” is another standout in which Aaron, a would-be writer, tells of his enduring love for twin sisters—one of them, it seems, now merely a spirit.
An inventive, empathetic set of character studies.
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615422435
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Midnight Oil Publishers
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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