Second Person Singular

February 27, 2012
“The lawyer” is a well-off Israeli Arab who becomes obsessed with the thought that his wife is having an affair. His violent reaction is disturbing, but apparently necessary to set in motion the chain of events that link him with the man he suspects is his wife’s lover. At its best, this novel illuminates just how fluid identity can be, even—or especially—amid the Arab-Israeli tension of Jerusalem. While the actual constructs of the plot can veer into the implausible, as when a paralyzed Jewish boy’s mother allows his Palestinian caretaker to steal her son’s identity, the deception sparks a compelling two-sided narrative: the young Palestinian man, pretending to be Jewish, enrolls in school and overhears Arabs’ conversations but never lets on that he understands. Unfortunately, the writing, often redundant and sluggish, could have used a shrewd editor. Kashua, a columnist for Haaretz, has sharp insights on the assumptions made about race, religion, ethnicity, and class that shape Israeli identity. Ideally, next time he will trade a cumbersome plot for characters that bring his wisdom to light. Agent: Deborah Harris, the Deborah Harris Agency.

March 15, 2012
Two Arab-Israelis struggle with their insecurities in this unconvincing third novel from the Arab-Israeli writer. He's sitting pretty, this Arab from the villages of northern Israel; at only 32, he's one of the top criminal-defense lawyers in Jerusalem, and an expert navigator through the thicket of Arab-Jewish relations. The unnamed lawyer also has a good marriage to Leila, a social worker; it may lack passion, but Leila makes sure the household, which includes two small children, runs like clockwork. The lawyer's calm, measured tone changes dramatically when a note falls from the used book, a Tolstoy novella, he's about to read. It's in his wife's handwriting and could be construed as erotic. The calculating lawyer turns into a raging monster of sexual jealousy. Has Tolstoy's wife-killer leapt from the page to possess him? Or is his naivete about matters of the heart taking its toll? (The lawyer has no experience with other women.) Disappointingly, these questions go unanswered, and their urgency ebbs as Kashua introduces another character, Amir, the protagonist of alternating sections. It's an awkward structure, made more so by a six-year time difference. Back then Amir, also an immigrant to Jerusalem from an Arab village, was a newly minted social worker, a socially inept kid who went on a not-quite-date with his co-worker Leila, who afterwards wrote that altogether innocent note. So there's the slender plot connection. Amir has a second job as a caregiver for Yonatan, a young Jewish man in a vegetative state. Gradually Amir assumes Yonatan's identity. He's alienated from his mother but finds a willing surrogate in Yonatan's mother; together, they pull the plug on the Jew and Amir buries him in an Arab cemetery. Creepy, for sure, yet the sequence resolves nothing. By now the time periods are in sync. The lawyer has tracked down Amir, who tells him everything, and the lawyer's marriage returns to normal; much ado about nothing, then. Kashua fails to illuminate his characters' troubled souls.

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March 15, 2012

Arab-Israeli novelist, essayist, and sitcom writer Kashua compares himself to Jerry Seinfeld, but there is little to laugh about in this frankly ironic tale of two men whose lives intersect briefly. Each fled a circumscribed village existence for Jerusalem where, as Arab minorities, they struggle with the sense of isolation inherent in a cultural and linguistic divide. One, who remains unnamed, has fashioned a successful life as a lawyer and is married with two children. The other, Amir, is a social worker who finds little equanimity until he takes the nightshift caring for Yonatan, a Jewish man about his own age with a brain injury. In a used bookstore, the lawyer finds a love note, apparently in his wife's hand, inside a copy of a Tolstoy novel that once belonged to Yonatan and is compelled by corrosive jealousy to seek the man whom Amir clothes, bathes, and feeds every night. Meanwhile, Amir suffers his own soul-killing envy of the privileges his charge has squandered. VERDICT Winner of the 2011 Bernstein Prize for literature, Kashua's parable deftly examines universal themes of isolation vs. assimilation. A worthy contribution to the increasingly popular works coming out of the Middle East.--Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib., Ft. Myers, FL

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2012
Kashua, an award-winning Israeli Arab writer, brilliantly depicts the situation of Israel's Arab middle class. He tells the story of a young Arab attorney, the most successful in Israel, who speaks perfect Hebrew and has an office at one of the best addresses in Jerusalem. His wife, a social worker, also has a successful career. Their two children attend a Jewish-Arab school, and their custom-designed home and Mercedes attest to their status. When the lawyer picks up a copy of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata in a used bookstore, he finds an old love letter tucked inside. It is in Arabic, in his wife's handwriting, and his life is suddenly much less serene. He becomes obsessed with finding the book's previous owner, a man named Yonatan, and suspicion and jealousy color his actions. Kashua's novel possesses great emotional power as well as keen social satire, offering readers a glimpse at the difficult task of straddling two cultures and navigating a perpetually shifting fault line where no comfort zone is available.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)