Category: Writing

 

Where there’s smoke: review of A.B. Yehoshua’s novel Friendly Fire

The Jerusalem Post, December 12, 2008

While perusing the bowing bookshelves of a dinner party host recently, I noticed a large A.B. Yehoshua collection. “Looks like someone’s a Yehoshua fan,” I remarked.

The hostess laughed, “Not exactly.” She explained the books once belonged to her mother. No, her mother hadn’t died – “Savta,” as everyone called her, was alive and well and sitting across from me at the dinner table.

“It came to a point that I was through with Yehoshua,” Savta said. “Enough was enough!”

A literature lover and a poet herself, she adored the writing but despised the ideology. She found herself torn, unable to throw the books away, and she bequeathed them to her daughter instead.

Love him or hate him – or both, like Savta – Yehoshua provokes strong reactions in his readers.

Sometimes.

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Bare-faced humor: review of Alan Zweibel’s non-fiction collection Clothing Optional

The Jerusalem Post, October 31, 2008

Clothing Optional and Other Ways to Read These Stories is the latest effort by award-winning comedy writer Alan Zweibel. This imaginative collection includes a wide range of forms – from a mock court deposition, to essays, to scripts, with an occasional pencil drawing thrown in for added humor.

The subject matter of the often irreverent pieces varies tremendously. Nothing is off limits for Zweibel and (reader, be warned) nothing is sacred. The opening act, “My First Love,” includes material that Zweibel refers to as “a heartwarming story titled ‘The Day I Got Caught Playing with Myself in Hebrew School… While Thinking About Abraham’s Wife, Sarah.'” Bouncing off of passages from Genesis, Zweibel takes us on a hilarious ride through the imagination of the 11-year-old “Avraham” Zweibel.

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Fugee Fridays

The Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2008

It’s almost Shabbat and Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market is slowly closing up. Stalls are clapped shut, the walkways are sprayed with water, and the last of the customers are clearing out, passing by mounds of unsold lettuce that have been dumped on the ground.

Behind the shuk, a motley crew of volunteers – some Israeli, but most American – is assembling on the sidewalk adjacent to the Carmelit bus terminal. A guy in a bright blue tank top and navy sweatpants pulls up on a bicycle. He has close-cropped dark hair and an easy smile. He looks relaxed, but the work he’s doing here is serious.

His name is Jesse Fox. He chats with some of the volunteers for a few minutes and then debriefs the group. Speaking of the vendors inside the shuk, he says, “These guys know us already. Just tell them we’re collecting food for the refugees from Darfur. They’ll give you a little food. It’s very simple.”

He’s right. It is simple. And the beauty of the project lies in its grassroots simplicity.

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From sunny Tel Aviv to cloudy Michigan: review of Danit Brown’s collection of short stories Ask for a Convertible

The Jerusalem Post, October 24, 2008

Danit Brown’s debut, Ask for a Convertible, is a collection of beautifully woven short stories, most of which revolve around Osnat Greenberg, who is both American and Israeli and comfortable with neither. Upon leaving sunny Tel Aviv for the cloudy suburbs of Michigan at the beginning of her teen years, Osnat embarks on a long and, under Brown’s artistry, exquisitely rendered struggle to find a place she feels she belongs in and can call home. Bookended by the appropriately titled “Descent” and “Ascent,” we follow Osnat as she freefalls through identity issues and as she searches for somewhere she can feel her feet firmly planted on the ground.

The journey we are on as readers is through stories full of vivid, quirky characters many of whom, like Osnat, are forced to continually define themselves and their place in the world. The characters are at turns compelling, darkly humorous and downright funny.

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Silicon Wadi: interview with Israeli author Noga Niv

The Jerusalem Post, September 5, 2008

For Hebrew readers who would like a glimpse at what life is like for Israelis in America, Noga Niv’s debut novel, Story from the Bubble, will make for a round look into their experiences. This character-driven story focuses on five Israeli women who have gathered for a weekend in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains to say farewell to one of their group, Gabi, who is moving back to Israel with her husband. While Gabi is eager to return home, her husband is still coming to terms with the upcoming change.

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Past into the present: review of Joseph Olshan’s novel The Conversion

The Jerusalem Post, August 29, 2008

Acclaimed author Joseph Olshan asserts his literary prowess once again with his latest novel, The Conversion. Hypnotic prose, several layers of intrigue, and a heady Old World setting harmonize to create a melodious, and immensely enjoyable, story. But The Conversion is more than a pleasurable read – Olshan addresses compelling themes such as religious identity, homosexuality and Europe’s current struggle to deal with an influx of immigrants from Muslim countries, deftly handling these potentially incendiary topics with thought and sensitivity.

This fast-paced read opens with a short and attention-grabbing first chapter. Russell Todaro, a struggling young writer, and his companion, Edward Cannon, an accomplished older poet, are surprised by intruders in their Paris hotel room. Edward subsequently dies and Russell is left to puzzle over both the mysterious intruders that led to his death and the unfinished autobiography he left behind.

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Honor thy mother: review of Alyse Myers’s memoir Who Do You Think You Are?

The Jerusalem Post, August 1, 2008

Formerly fodder for the psychoanalyst’s couch, memoirs recounting the abuses one has suffered at the hands of one’s mother seem to have come into vogue. Alyse Myers’s Who Do You Think You Are? is one of the latest releases in this genre.

The memoir opens with the bold statement “I didn’t like my mother, and I certainly didn’t love her,” immediately giving the reader a sense of the troubled mother-daughter relationship that will follow. The book also begins with a mystery: Myers’s mother has died and she and her two sisters are going through her belongings at her apartment in Queens. Myers spirits away a box belonging to her mother – contents unknown – and returns to her Manhattan apartment and tells her husband she didn’t find anything. “I don’t know why I lied to him,” she recalls. After tucking the still unopened box deep into her closet, Myers says, “I can’t explain why I didn’t open the box that day. And I can’t explain why I didn’t open it until 12 years later. I don’t know what I was afraid of…”

Although the author’s lack of self-awareness and insight are a bit frustrating, the prologue does capture the reader’s attention and piques curiosity about what’s inside both the box and the story surrounding it.

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In the footsteps of Columbus: review of Tony Horwitz’s non-fiction book A Voyage Long and Strange

The Jerusalem Post, July 25, 2008

For many readers, hearing the words “history” and “book” in the same sentence invokes groans and nightmarish memories of high school. Tony Horwitz’s A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World not only changes that, it also irrevocably changes the way you view the New World – past, present, and future. No small tasks, but this is no small author. Horwitz masterfully and gracefully steers us through the annals of early American history and his own travel narrative, keeping us fascinated all the while.

And he even manages to make us laugh along the way.

The prologue begins on a humorous note. Horwitz spends a night in Plymouth while on a road trip, having chosen the Plymouth exit only because he didn’t want to pull off the interstate before a baseball game on the radio ended. The following day he goes to see Plymouth Rock, which he likens to “a fossilized potato.” While at the site, he speaks with a park ranger who observes, “Americans learn about 1492 and 1620 as kids and that’s all they remember as adults… The rest of the story is blank.”

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