AQUARIUM

Two young girls raised in a Deaf family must find their way after their sheltered, codependent world is shattered.

Lili and Dori Ackerman are Deaf. All their lives, they have lived in an isolation largely imposed on the family by their father; they have no interaction with hearing people, as their parents are also Deaf and choose to teach the girls at home. All the elements of their existence are controlled, planned for, regulated—not unlike the controlled climate of an aquarium, complete with visitors pressing their faces against the glass to gaze upon the exotic dwellers within. When the borders of their fortress are breached and new elements introduced into their world, the consequences have a ripple effect the Ackermans could not have foreseen. The narrative switches back and forth between perspectives as we observe Lili and Dori walking their separate paths, representing two different possibilities—counterlives, as Philip Roth would have it. Israeli poet and editor Shehori’s debut novel has the resonance of a folktale, rendered in evocative prose (for which we must also credit translator Hasak-Lowy) that lends an otherworldly quality to the story, mirroring the rarified existence of the Ackerman sisters. But ultimately, this comes at the expense of an engaging narrative, as we are kept at arm’s length from the protagonists; despite the extended glimpses into their interiority, they are more like characters in a fable than they are fully drawn, idiosyncratic people. Nevertheless, Shehori has brought into being a memorable fictional world that asks us to rethink our assumptions about family versus community, nature versus nurture, and how we relate to—and communicate with—one another.

A surprising, provocative debut that holds the weight of myth.