Dinner at the Center of the Earth

July 17, 2017
“It’s Israel. We let murderers come home on weekends.” This is what a young man, known only as “the guard,” initially tells his mother, hoping to resist her plans that he take work in a prison. He is certain there’s no moral high ground to be found, even on what she calls the “right” side of the bars. Plagued by the moral failings of the country, the guard wanted to leave Israel altogether. Instead, he takes the job and becomes both complicit in those failings—making him the most complex, human, and strangely appealing character in Englander’s clever, fragmented, pithy new spy novel. On the other side of the bars from the guard is “Prisoner Z,” whose story is pieced together over the course of the book. An American Jew who polished his Zionist idealism in the cafeteria of Hebrew University, Prisoner Z threw himself into the murky workings of “intelligence” because he’d been “afraid peace would start without him.” Except then he got in over his head, and the violence and anger rapidly spread in every direction, eventually ensnaring him. With chapters that toggle back and forth in time and in location, the narrative begins on the Israeli side of the Gaza border in 2014, before jumping to Paris and Berlin in 2002, a hospital near Tel Aviv in 2014, the Negev Desert, and back again. Englander (What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank) is a wise observer with an empathetic heart.

July 1, 2017
A prisoner is held for more than a decade in the Israeli desert while, elsewhere, a general in a coma hallucinates about his past life and a young man works to fund the Palestinian resistance.Englander's (What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, 2012, etc.) latest novel is an odd amalgam: part political thriller, part romance, part absurdist farce, it never quite settles into the story it wants to tell. First, there's Prisoner Z, who's been held for 12 years in an undisclosed location in Israel's Negev Desert. His only human contact has been with his guard. Then, there are flashbacks to Prisoner Z's time hiding out in Paris. An American intelligence operative, he's compromised Israeli secrets, and the authorities have it in for him. In the meantime, he starts up a romance with a waitress and they dash around Europe together. There's also the General, an infamous Israeli leader who's been in a coma for years; Ruthi, the General's former assistant and current caretaker; Ruthi's son, who happens to serve as Prisoner Z's guard; and Farid, a young Palestinian in Berlin who's working to fund his brother's anti-settlement activities. Chapters alternate among these various threads. Unfortunately, Englander fails to fully weave them together. His tone is uneven--sometimes he strains toward humor, sometimes toward drama, without quite reaching either one. The humor sags, and the political intrigue doesn't quite add up. If it's a farce, it's an uneasy one. Toward the end, Englander introduces a second romance, and this one feels rushed, tacked on like a donkey's tail. Still, there are moments of fine writing throughout. An uneasy blend of political intrigue, absurdity, and romance struggles to establish a steady, never mind believable, tone.

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July 1, 2017
Equal parts political thriller and tender lamentation, the latest from Englander (What We Talk about When We Talk about Anne Frank, 2012) explores, in swirling, nonlinear fashion, Israeli-Palestinian tensions and moral conflicts. The General, who is never named but is clearly former prime minister Ariel Sharon, lies in a coma, his thoughts hovering over past glories and a horrifying gunshot. By his side is Ruthi, his devoted assistant, whose pot-smoking, TV-obsessed son has found a plum job guarding the disappeared Prisoner Z in a secret prison in the Negev. An American spy who in a moment of either moral courage or traitorous intent turned against his Israeli backers, Z was on the run in Europe but tripped up when he fell in love with a fearless waitress from an ultrawealthy Italian family. Discerning the connections between these narratives provides much of the drama, which turns on the logic of human weakness and intractable opposition. Ultimately, Englander suggests that shared humanity and fleeting moments of kindness between jailer and prisoner, spy and counterspy, hold the potential for hope, even peace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

August 1, 2017

What connects a young Palestinian living elegantly in Berlin, the wealthy Canadian businessman he's teaching to sail, a beautiful Italian waitress in Paris, the frightened young man in love with her, a famously aggressive Israeli general now lying comatose in a hospital near Tel Aviv, and the woman who hovers over him? Prisoner Z, forgotten in a secret cell somewhere in the Negev Desert, where he's been watched over for 12 years by a disaffected guard who acts almost like a friend. An American Jew spying for Israel, Z blew an important mission, then had a crisis of conscience regarding Israeli tactics that turned him against the country. Englander (What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank) articulates Israeli-Palestinian strife and Israel's current moral conundrums without sounding didactic. If anything, the discussion feels sketchy, and the cross-cutting among the disparate parts of the story can be disorienting. It finally clicks together, but the author keeps us off-balance with a coda about two lovers dining in an underground tunnel, an uneasy summation of unresolved conflict. VERDICT Smart and intriguing but not always satisfying, perhaps better in its parts than in the whole, this is a near-miss from an important writer still worth your time. [See Prepub Alert, 3/17/17.]--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2017

A Pulitzer Prize finalist and a PEN/Malamud, Sue Kaufman, and inaugural Bard Fiction prize winner, Englander illuminates the tense and often violent relationship between Israelis and Palestinians and the moral complexity of their situation by portraying a prisoner locked in a secret cell and the guard who has spent 12 years making sure that door remains closed. With a seven-city tour.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.