A rich and harrowing novel with plenty to say about religion and authorship.
An Israeli woman plots revenge against the relative who raped her sister—and wrote an imagined autobiography of Adolf Hitler besides—in a coruscating novel about faith and family.
Elinor, the middle-aged narrator of the second novel by Hareven to be translated into English (The Confessions of Noa Weber, 2009), lives a comfortable life in Jerusalem with her husband, Oded, and writes a newspaper column about the quirky adventures of an imagined immigrant to the city. Her just-so existence is undone, though, when she learns that her uncle, Aaron, is visiting Israel from the United States. Aaron is making an apology tour for a novel he wrote decades before, Hitler, First Person, and his re-emergence stokes Elinor’s memories of how he repeatedly sexually assaulted her sister, Elisheva, when he was writing the novel in the family home. In the months before Aaron’s arrival, Elinor and Oded head to the U.S. to visit their sons but also take a detour to central Illinois, where Elisheva has started a family, converted to Christianity and—to Elinor’s disgust—not only corresponded with Aaron, but forgiven him. (“She doesn’t want a trial,” Elinor moans to Oded. “She wants him to ascend to heaven with her.”) How much does Elinor owe her sister if she’s moved on? How much did Aaron’s imagination of Hitler’s evil spill over into his own monstrousness? And how much does Elinor’s urge “to see Aaron burn” only perpetuate the problem? Hareven’s novel is a brilliant and careful study of those questions, capturing Elinor’s ever accelerating rage while maintaining a prose style that’s poised and philosophical. The Garden of Eden is a persistent trope in the novel, as Elinor keeps imagining her home as a refuge; but when Oded becomes conscripted into her obsession, it’s clear we remain in a stubbornly post-lapsarian world.
A rich and harrowing novel with plenty to say about religion and authorship.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-940953-03-8
Page Count: 375
Publisher: Open Letter
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
© Copyright 2026 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.
