A thoughtful, provocative novel that artfully examines political obstacles to Jewish spirituality.
A fictional investigation of Jewish identity that tracks the parallel efforts of two men to live as Jews in an inhospitable world.
This is Avi-Hai’s (Danger: Three Jewish Peoples, 1997, etc.) first novel. His other books were nonfiction analyses of Jewish theological and political affairs. A Canadian-born journalist who immigrated to Israel in 1952 and an Israeli civil servant, his life seems to have revolved around the historically nettlesome question of Jewish identity. The novel itself is really two novellas, each meant to mirror and illuminate the other. Both follow characters named Avraham. Like the author, the first Avraham is a Canadian-born journalist who immigrated to Israel out of solidarity with the Zionist cause. From the very beginning, Avraham finds himself in peril. He has stumbled upon rampant corruption among the ultra-Orthodox rabbi extremists, the very same rabbis who “sanctioned” Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination after he signed the Oslo Accords. These rabbinical ideologues are entangled in an embezzlement scheme, and Avraham has gathered enough evidence to prove it. Under threat of death, he flees to Greece, pays for an ersatz passport and makes his way to Italy. On his way, he is entrusted with a very old manuscript of undetermined provenance in order to determine its value and negotiate its sale. The manuscript turns out to be the story of another Avraham, an Italian writing circa 1600. As the shared names suggest, both narrators experience morally comparable challenges, attempting to maintain their Jewishness in the face of relentless persecution. The Renaissance Avraham runs from the Inquisition. The prose sometimes slides into the melodramatic, but the story remains a philosophically serious engagement with a historically significant theme: the tension between Judaism and a modern world “infected with ideological viruses.”
A thoughtful, provocative novel that artfully examines political obstacles to Jewish spirituality.Pub Date: July 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-0989416900
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Appletree Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Pub Date: April 7, 1998
ISBN: 0-446-52356-9
Page Count: 322
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends,...
Before sobriety, Catherine "Cat" Coombs had it all: fun friends, an exciting job, and a love affair with alcohol. Until she blacked out one more time and woke up in a stranger’s bed.
By that time, “having it all” had already devolved into hiding the extent of her drinking from everyone she cared about, including herself. Luckily for Cat, the stranger turned out to be Jason Halliwell, a rather delicious television director marking three years, eight months, and 69 days of sobriety. Inspired by Jason—or rather, inspired by the prospect of a romantic relationship with this handsome hunk—Cat joins him at AA meetings and embarks on her own journey toward clarity. But sobriety won’t work until Cat commits to it for herself. Their relationship is tumultuous, as Cat falls off the wagon time and again. Along the way, Cat discovers that the cold man she grew up endlessly failing to please was not her real father, and with his death, her mother’s secret escapes. So she heads for Nantucket, where she meets her drunken dad and two half sisters—one boisterously welcoming and the other sulkily suspicious—and where she commits an unforgivable blunder. Years later, despairing of her persistent relapses, Jason has left Cat, taking their daughter with him. Finally, painfully, Cat gets clean. Green (Saving Grace, 2014, etc.) handles grim issues with a sure hand, balancing light romance with tense family drama. She unflinchingly documents Cat’s humiliations under the influence and then traces her commitment to sobriety. Simultaneously masking the motivations of those surrounding our heroine, Green sets up a surprising karmic lesson.
As she seeks to repair bridges, Cat awakens anger and treachery in the hearts of those she once betrayed. Making amends, like addiction, may endanger her future.Pub Date: June 23, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-04734-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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