A first English translation of a subdued and haunting story of Israeli village life, originally published in Hebrew in 1974, that combines elements of Willa Cather's A Lost Lady and L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between, with hints of Albert Camus and Paul Bowles to produce a devastating impression of waste and loss. A funeral, early in the novel, establishes a mournful tone that never dissipates (and never relaxes its grip on the reader) and that deftly suggests a premature end to things, a darkness that descends too soon. The aftermath of that funeral resonates with images of heat and exhaustion, with suggestions of failed communication, and with a sense of the nearby presence of vaguely threatening dangers. These elements join to create an atmosphere of depression that encompasses Koren's protagonist, the young housewife Hagar Erlich. Indifferent to her busy husband Tuvia, and unable to stir herself to complete the requirements for her teacher's certificate or to find some other fulfillment, Hagar drifts into an almost maternal relationship with a ten-year-old boy, Yiftach, entrusted to her care. During walks with Yiftach outside their village to a former Arab settlement (now used as a military training facility), Hagar abandons herself to the consequences of her meeting with a solitary, taciturn soldier—and passively endures the linked catastrophes that overtake her marriage to Tuvia, their neighbors, and the naively trusting boy. The story's a simple one, and Koren conveys its exceptional portraits of wasted lives with rigorous understatement. But its characterizations are deep and weighted with implied emotion. Koren intensifies our understanding of his damaged people through several interpolated extended flashbacks, such as the story of Yiftach's mother's unhappy youth and continuing bad luck with men, and the revelation of Tuvia's history of submissiveness and disappointment- -a history that leaves him helpless in the face of Hagar's unhappiness and unfaithfulness. A minor masterpiece, and one of the best novels out of Israel in recent memory.
Pub Date: April 15, 1996
ISBN: 1-883642-03-5
Page Count: 253
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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