Standard heartache and uplift.
The first novel by American-born Israel resident Bletter (The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women, 1989) tells the story of four American women living in Peleg, a village on the Mediterranean coast of Israel.
The women belong to a traditional burial circle, which prepares the dead for interment. While it's supposed to be the novel’s thematic center of gravity, the group feels more like an awkward vehicle to connect the characters’ stories. Aviva grew up in New York and was recruited into spy work by what she calls “the Company” after attending a pro-Israel demonstration in college. Caught in an affair with a fellow spy, she relocated to Israel, became an English teacher, and met her husband, Rafi. Already brokenhearted by the death of her oldest son in a terrorist attack, she struggles to rebuild her life after Rafi dies of a heart attack. Lauren, a nurse from Boston, joins the burial circle after the birth of her first daughter. Deeply homesick for New England’s climate and culture, she can't stop wondering if she made a mistake in agreeing to marry her Israeli husband, David, and relocate with him to his hometown, where she doesn't feel comfortable. In contrast, Lauren’s college roommate, Emily, who follows Lauren to Peleg on a lark after being dumped by her first husband, feels immediately at home. She finds work as a receptionist at the local hotel, meets and marries a taciturn local farmer, Boaz, and soon has twin sons. But military veteran Boaz proves to be emotionally damaged, and Emily finds herself drawn to Ali, a Muslim Arab who dreams of living in America. Thrown into the mix is the annoyingly naïve Rachel, a college student who arrives as a volunteer. Having always felt like an outsider growing up in Wyoming, she embraces her Jewish identity in Israel and soon falls in love with a soldier.
Standard heartache and uplift.Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-238244-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
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
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
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