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Feb 01, 2018nellybells rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
How I found this is a mystery to me - maybe Jewish Book Council, or a blog about recent translations. In any case I feel so lucky to have found it. Three novellas - three tenants of a house in Tel Aviv. They don't have much to do with one another but do flit in and out of each other's lives as neighbors are wont to do. I was so moved by the stories. I don't know how to describe what Nevo does. His voice feels new to me and I wished the book would just go on and on, adding new characters along the way. All are told in first person and I think all the narrators were lying or at least not quite believable. Scattered throughout are throw-away tidbits of cultural information; for example, how children learn to make cogent and satisfying arguments, the secular distaste for the orthodox and their civil power. Some feel guilt about the occupation. I think the translator was wonderful. She gets the slang right and as for the Hebrew words sprinkled within, doesn't matter. The little bit of Yiddish I did get. I read Homesick which is the novel preceding this one. Only made it halfway. Want to go one novel back and read Neuland. Eshkol Nevo really feels like a discovery and I can see why he is wildly popular in Israel.