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
A huge improvement over Brazilian author Coelho's last, the gucky religious romance By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1996). The carpenter Elijah, at age 23, knows he's a prophet because an angel keeps visiting him and giving him orders on what to do with his life. The Israelites and their One God live under the heels of the Phoenicians and of the slinky Jezebel of Samaria, worshipper of Baal. Jezebel sends her troops and priests out to slay all Israelite prophets, of whom there are many, and so Elijah's angel tells him to flee to the desert, where a crow will feed him daily. Indeed, the crow not only feeds him but talks to him as well, although Elijah insists that he's really talking only with himself. Then the angel appears again, this time telling Elijah that he must avenge the Lord—a plan that includes his going to Akbar and living with a widow. The widow at first resists taking him in. And when her boy dies, the townsfolk take the Israelite's presence as a curse and the cause of the child's death. The priests send Elijah up on Baal's Fifth Mountain, where they assume he'll be consumed by fire. Instead, of course, his angel appears and tells him to return to the widow and raise her boy from the dead. This he does, though the priests don't accept the miracle. In a later test of faith, Elijah, triumphing over these same priests, sets in motion a series of events leading both to Jezebel's death and Baal's humbling. Eventually, Elijah—still alive—is carried off to heaven in a chariot of fire. Compellingly, everyone keeps keen score on the gods as if they are strangely real rival sports teams. Coelho meanwhile handles religion, politics, battles, plagues, the earthshaking arrival of the alphabet, and the destruction and rebuilding of Akbar with realism, suspense, and down-to-earth dialogue. Surprisingly persuasive storytelling.
Pub Date: March 11, 1998
ISBN: 0-06-017544-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
Father Dowling's creator (On This Rockne, 1997, etc.) takes aim at the highest echelons of the modern church in this ambitious, plumply plotted tale of Vatican-American politics. For as long as he can remember, Thomas Lannan has dreamed of wearing a cardinal's red hat. Now that he's Archbishop of Washington, D.C., and president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB), the prize seems unbearably close— especially once Lannan, urged on by his old friend Maureen Kilmartin, engineers the appointment of one of his boyhood pals, Notre Dame history professor James Morrow, to the ornamental but highly visible post as American ambassador to the Vatican. The debates that Morrow's magisterial history, The Decline and Fall of the American Catholic Church, kicks up about the fortunes of the church in the 30 years since the Second Vatican Council supply a foundation for the positions of dozens of fictional Catholic commentators of every stripe, from archconservative Monsignor Rodney Leach, the sardonic Savonarola of Toledo, to Maureen's brother Frank Bailey, dean of dissident American theologians. But as deeply as McInerny obviously cares about these debates and the anguish they cause his cast, he has to rush past them to the next complication in his byzantine plot. A prostitute comes to Rome with a prophetic vision reserved for the Pope. Lannan's call to Rome to receive his red hat is thwarted when the Pope dies before conferring it. The convocation of cardinals that names the new Pope comes under attack for excluding Lannan and his fellow cardinals-designate. The new Pope dies, provoking still deeper schism. Lannan is kidnapped and held captive. An outlaw conclave spearheaded by the NCCB anoints an Anti-pope. Lannan survives every challenge to his integrity only to be threatened with the revelation of an unacknowledged child. Whew. An impassioned guided tour of postVatican II theological politics wrapped in a story as shapeless as Dumas.
Pub Date: March 15, 1998
ISBN: 0-89870-681-5
Page Count: 600
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
