David Grossman Books In Order

Duel

David is a twelve year old boy living in Jerusalem in 1966. His best friend just happens to be seventy year old Heinrich Rosenthal, who lives at the Beit Hakerem Home for the Aged. Their friendship takes an unexpected turn when Mr. Rosenthal receives a threatening letter from the man he once knew as ‘the bully of Heidelberg University.’ The letter accuses Mr. Rosenthal of stealing a priceless painting and challenges him to a duel if it is not returned immediately. But Mr. Rosenthal didn’t steal the painting. Who did? Determined to find some answers and prevent the duel, David plays detective and ultimately uncovers the story of two beautiful paintings, one of a woman’s eyes and the other of her mouth, given by the artist to the two men who are now willing to kill one another over them. With some brilliant sleuthing and a bit of luck, David manages to pull together the strings of a story that began more than thirty years before, preventing a tragedy by bringing a long dead memory to back to life.

The Smile of the Lamb

In a chorus of voices The Smile of the Lamb tells the story of Uri, an idealistic young Israeli soldier serving in an army unit in the small Palestinian village of Andal, in the occupied territories, and his relationship with Khilmi, a nearly blind old Palestinian storyteller. Gradually as the violent reality of the occupation that infects both the occupier and the occupied alike merges with the old man’s stories, Uri, captivated by Khilmi s wisdom, tries to solve the riddles and deceits that make up his life. Originally published in Hebrew in 1983, The Smile of the Lamb is a novel of disillusionment and a piercing examination of injustice and dishonesty.

See Under

In this powerful novel by one of Israel’s most prominent writers, Momik, the only child of Holocaust survivors, grows up in the shadow of his parents history. Determined to exorcise the Na*zi beast from their shattered lives and prepare for a second holocaust he knows is coming, Momik increasingly shields himself from all feeling and attachment. But through the stories his great uncle tells him the same stories he told the commandant of a Na*zi concentration camp Momik, too, becomes infected with humanity. Grossman s masterly fusing of vision, thought, and emotion make See Under: Love a luminously imaginative and profoundly affecting work.

The Book of Intimate Grammar

Aron Kelinfeld is the ringleader among the boys in his Jerusalem neighborhood, but as his 12 year old friends begin to mature, Aaron remains imprisoned in the body of a child for three long years. While Israel inches toward the Six Day War, and his friends cross the boundary between childhood and adolescence, Aron remains in his child’s body, spying on the changes that adulthood wreaks as, like his hero Houdini, he struggles to escape the trap of growing up.

The Zig Zag Kid

David Grossman’s classic novels See Under: Love and The Book of Intimate Grammar, earned him international acclaim as an author of childhood. The Zig Zag Kid is written in a more optimistic vein, and recounts thirteen year old Nonny Feuerberg’s picturesque journey into adulthood. As Nonny s Bar Mitzvah year trip turns into an amazing adventure, he not only finds himself befriending a notorious criminal, and a great actress, but confronts the great mystery of his own identity.

With wit and humor, The Zig Zag Kid is a novel that explores the most fundamental questions of good and evil and speaks directly to both adults and teenagers.

Be My Knife

The international bestseller: a compelling love story from the leading Israeli novelist of his generation’We could be like two people who inject themselves with truth serum, and at long last have to tell it the truth. I want to be able to say to myself, ‘I bled truth with her,’ yes, that’s what I want. Be a knife for me, and I, I swear, will be a knife for you.’An awkward, neurotic seller of rare books writes a desperate letter to a beautiful stranger whom he sees at a class reunion. This simple, lonely attempt at seduction begins a love affair of words between Yair and Miriam, two married, middle aged adults, dissatisfied with their lives, yearning for the connection that has always eluded them and, eventually, reawakened to feelings that they thought had passed them by. Their correspondence unfolds into an exchange of their most naked confessions: of desire, childhood tragedies, joys, and humiliations. Through the dialogue between Yair a family man and surprisingly successful adulterer, whose complex, guarded letters reveal a life of secrets kept from the people closest to him and Miriam, at first deceptively open and warm, who fills her life with distraction to avoid a past full of painful secrets, Be My Knife explores the nature and the limits of intimacy. A deep departure from David Grossman’s previous work, Be My Knife is his subtlest, most passionate novel yet.

Someone to Run with

The story of a lost dog, and the discovery of first love on the streets of Jerusalem are portrayed here with a gritty realism that is as fresh as it is compelling. When awkward and painfully shy sixteen year old Assaf is asked to find the owner of a stray yellow lab, he begins a quest that will bring him into contact with street kids and criminals, and a talented young singer, Tamar, engaged on her own mission: to rescue a teenage drug addict.A runaway bestseller in Israel, in the words of the Christian Science Monitor: It’s time for Americans to fall in love with Someone to Run with. David Grossman is the author of six novels and three works of nonfiction. He lives in Jerusalem. Earnest, awkward, and painfully shy, sixteen year old Assaf is having the worst summer of his life. With his big sister gone to America and his best friend suddenly the most popular kid in their class, Assaf worries away his days at a lowly summer job in Jerusalem’s city hall and spends his evenings alone, watching television and playing games on the Internet. One morning, Assaf’s routine is interrupted by an absurd assignment: to find the owner of a stray yellow Labrador retriever. Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, Tamar, a talented young singer with a lonely, tempestuous soul, undertakes an equally unpromising mission: to rescue a drug addicted boy from the underworld…
and, eventually, to find her dog. Someone to Run with is the most popular work to date from ‘a writer who has been, for nearly two decades, one of the most original and talented…
anywhere’ The New York Times Book Review, a bestseller hailed by the Israeli press and by reform politicians such as Shimon Peres for its mixture of fairy tale magic, emotional sensitivity, and gritty realism. The novel explores the life of Israeli street kids whom Grossman interviewed extensively and the anxieties of family life in a society racked by self doubt. Most of all, it evokes the adventure of adolescence and the discovery of love as Tamar and Assaf, pushed beyond the limits of childhood by their quests, find themselves, and each other. ‘Beautiful and arresting…
Like the best fables, Someone to Run with hoists the reader into a world larger and more luminous than any found outside the book. Grossman has created a place of great dangers and improbable strokes of fortune, of compelling suspense and love’s labor gained.’ Los Angeles Times ‘Beautiful and arresting…
Like the best fables, Someone to Run with hoists the reader into a world larger and more luminous than any found outside the book. Grossman has created a place of great dangers and improbable strokes of fortune, of compelling suspense and love s labor gained.’ Los Angeles Times’In Grossman’s latest novel, which tumbles along the dusty streets of Jerusalem, adolescent idealism and angst keep the characters on the move. Assaf, a shy misfit, embarks upon a quixotic journey with a lost dog to find its mistress. Tamar, a caustic fifteen year old who can sing Mozart and Leonard Cohen on demand, runs away from home to find the criminals who have ensnared her older brother. A young street musician, in the grip of a hero*in habit as formidable as his talent, stumbles through his routines with death close behind. The resulting picaresque is a cross between Run Lola Run and Oliver Twist, and as the reader waits for these solitary odysseys to intersect, the urgency becomes almost unbearable. Grossman evokes teen age nobility and self hatred in all its pimply particularity, while slyly suggesting that the arduous quest for connections should never be outgrown.’ The New Yorker’In its wittily idiomatic translation, Someone to Run with is an enjoyable novel.’ Gabriele Annan, The New York Review of Books’Grossman is a highly intelligent writer…
This is a literary political novel that engages us with the means and effects of its storytelling.’ Claire Messud, The New York Times Book Review’Grossman’s sixth novel, Someone to Run with, reveals again that he is one of contemporary literature’s most versatile and absorbing writers…
This is Grossman at his most accessible, but it preserves the qualities that characterize his more opaque works…
An almost unbearably suspenseful narrative…
Grossman demonstrates an astonishing ability to portray the world of youth…
With his journalistic eye for realistic detail, Grossman never lets us forget that Assaf and Tamar are young, lochbut he simultaneously refuses to patronize them with the lazy generalizations adults often apply to adolescence. Someone to Run with seamlessly combines suspense with subtle insights into the way we live now…
A deceptively simple story that is another revelation of Grossman’s genius.’ Kenneth Brewer, San Francisco Chronicle’There’s much to praise here…
Grossman has written an urban adventure story, and he sets it in motion like a pro…
The book offers a portrait of the teenage mind that’s both refreshingly noble and convincingly observed.’ Justin Cronin, The Washington Post Book World’A delightful novel in a sprightly translation by Vered Almog and Maya Gurantz…
Grossman has such a tender ear for the whimpers of adolescent loneliness and such deep appreciation for youthful heroism…
The age range for this book is unusually wide…
It would be a shame not to alert high school teachers and librarians to this gem.’ Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor’ Grossman tells a universal story about the loneliness and insecurity of adolescence, as well as the redeeming power of love and human connection.’ Reform Judaism’Within the stylized format of hair raising adventure, this novel portrays the harrowing rites of passage necessary to making the leap to adulthood.’ Dan Cryer, Newsday’It’s plain to see Mr. Grossman’s skill as a storyteller. Someone to Run with is an involving novel, full of drama and suspense…
His greatest strength, however, is taking us into the minds of his two leading characters as they navigate the shoals and depths of that always difficult passage, adolescence…
Here, as in such earlier novels as See Under: LOVE, The Zigzag Kid, and The Book of Intimate Grammar, Mr. Grossman demonstrates his affinity for adolescents and his outstanding ability to get into their minds. The questions they ask themselves, the problems they face, and the ways in which they come to understand the world and their relationship to it are qualities that render these young people relevant to readers of all ages.’ Merle Rubin, The Washington Times’Very different from Grossman’s books of political commentary, this entertaining novel is more like his Zigzag Kid 1997, part urban survival adventure, part YA romance, and part mystery. A bestseller in Israel and translated from the Hebrew in an informal, relaxed style, the story weaves together the lives of two middle class teens who find themselves in Jerusalem’s violent drug underworld. Tamar, a talented singer, runs away from home with her beloved dog, shaves her head, sets up a hideout. Who is she searching for? Why is she on the run? When she loses her dog, awkward, shy teenager Assaf finds the stray lab, who then leads him on a wild chase across the city until they find Tamar…
The many plot surprises about ‘unconscious messengers’ are fun…
For many readers, the most memorable character will be the lost dog, who always knows where he is going, who he is, and who he loves.’ Hazel Rochman, Booklist’Every once in a while, Grossman abandons his structurally intricate, morally complex novels of Israeli society, such as Be My Knife and See Under: Love, for lighter fare aimed at both adolescent and adult readers. But ‘lighter’ is a relative term; like his previous adventure story The Zigzag Kid, this new novel drags its teenage protagonists through some heavy terrain…
In Grossman’s hands, this plot is both pleasingly familiar and made new through immersion in the details of Israeli life. Almog and Gurantz do a fine job translating the book’s mix of teenage dialogue and lush description.’ Publishers Weekly ‘ A greeably melodramatic…
Here, two Israeli teenagers undertake intersecting perilous quests. When Assaf, who is 16 and enduring a demeaning summertime job at Jerusalem’s City Hall, is ordered to find and fine the owner of an obstreperous stray dog, he stumbles into a world reshaped by terrorist attacks, rampant criminality, and confused loyalties. Discovering that the person he seeks is a runaway girl also 16 named Tamar, Assaf and the dog, Dinka prowl Jerusalem’s darkest corners, receiving leading information from Theodora, an aged Greek nun who hasn’t left her apartment in 50 years, yet seems to have been a de facto fairy godmother to vagabond youths and street people. Meanwhile, Grossman constructs a parallel narrative beginning earlier than do Assaf’s adventures of Tamar’s entry into a gang of street performers masterminded by criminal boss Pesach whose other minions pick the pockets of his performers’ audiences. We learn that Tamar, a precociously gifted singer, is seeking her brother Shai, a hero*in addict in thrall to Pesach. The two narratives move swiftly, eventually joining for a prolonged climax, during which Tamar and Assaf see Shai through a gruelling withdrawal, and Assaf understands the necessity and comfort of having ‘someone to run wit…

To the End of the Land

From one of Israel’s most acclaimed writers comes a novel of extraordinary power about family life the greatest human drama and the cost of war. Ora, a middle aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the notifiers who might darken her door with the worst possible news. Recently estranged from her husband, Ilan, she drags along an unlikely companion: their former best friend and her former lover Avram, once a brilliant artistic spirit. Avram served in the army alongside Ilan when they were young, but their lives were forever changed one weekend when the two jokingly had Ora draw lots to see which of them would get the few days leave being offered by their commander a chance act that sent Avram into Egpyt and the Yom Kippur War, where he was brutally tortured as POW. In the aftermath, a virtual hermit, he refused to keep in touch with the family and has never met the boy. Now, as Ora and Avram sleep out in the hills, ford rivers, and cross valleys, avoiding all news from the front, she gives him the gift of Ofer, word by word; she supplies the whole story of her motherhood, a retelling that keeps Ofer very much alive for Ora and for the reader, and opens Avram to human bonds undreamed of in his broken world. Their walk has a war and peace rhythm, as their conversation places the most hideous trials of war next to the joys and anguish of raising children. Never have we seen so clearly the reality and surreality of daily life in Israel, the currents of ambivalence about war within one household, and the burdens that fall on each generation anew. Grossman s rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great antiwar novels of our time. From the Hardcover edition.

Six Israeli Novellas

Six Israeli Novellas offers work by six of Israel’s most important contemporary authors. Included are Aharon Appelfeld’s ‘In the Isles of St. George,’ in which a fugitive black marketeer a modern reincarnation of the eternal Wandering Jew is forced to take refuge on a desolate Italian island, where his past, his Jewishness, and his very sense of identity are resolved. In ‘Yani on the Mountain,’ David Grossman explores the psychological impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War on a young generation of Israelis against the backdrop of a Mount Sinai army base in its final days before demolition. Ruth Almog’s ‘Shrinking’ lyrically portrays the loneliness and frustrations of a middle aged hero*ine whose longing for true human contact is thwarted by her stifling bond to her aged father. Also included are Yaakov Shabtai’s ‘Uncle Peretz Takes Flight,’ a grotesque history of the Zionist dream, in the vein of Shalom Aleichem; Yehudit Hendel’s ‘Small Change,’ about the interaction between the paranoid experience of an Israeli woman abroad and a complex father daughter relationship; and Benjamin Tammuz’s ‘My Brother,’ in which one brother’s selfish conquests are contrasted to the other’s passive, but ultimately more sinister, altruism. In the words of editor Gershon Shaked, these novellas ‘show modern Israeli fiction at its richest and most diversified, with a character all its own.’ Verba Mundi

Her Body Knows

A fevered storyteller and a captive audience revisit the past together in each of David Grossman’s new novellas, trying to make sense of a betrayal that neither one can put to rest. In ‘Frenzy,’ reserved, respectable Shaul lets his sister in law, Esti, into a secret nightmare, as he reveals to her his conviction that his wife is having an affair. Along with Esti, we find ourselves trapped in his paranoia and desperation as we accompany the odd pair down Israel’s highways on a journey that reveals a passion perverted by jealousy and self loathing. In the title story, a successful but embittered novelist visits her mother, who is in the last stages of cancer. Grossman investigates the powers of storytelling to harm and heal as the daughter reads aloud her own imagined, merciless account of her mother’s love affair with a much younger teenage boy. Gradually it becomes clear that, for all its anger, the daughter s story and the writing process itself have led her to a new appreciation of her mother’s difficult character, and her own. Studies in obssession, claustrophobia, and the need to confess, these two novellas mark a new departure from ‘a writer who has been, for nearly two decades, the one of the most original and talented…
anywhere.’ The New York Times Book Review.

The Yellow Wind

With a new introduction by the author. The Israeli novelist David Grossman’s impassioned account of what he observed on the West Bank in early 1987 not only the misery of the Palestinian refugees and their deep seated hatred of the Israelis but also the cost of occupation for both occupier and occupied is an intimate and urgent moral report on one of the great tragedies of our time. The Yellow Wind caused a sensation upon its original publication. Now with a new introduction by the author, it is essential reading for anyone who seeks a deeper understanding of Israel today.

Sleeping On a Wire

Israel describes itself as a Jewish state. What, then, is the status of the one fifth of its citizens who are not Jewish? Are they Israelis, or are they Palestinians? Or are they a people without a country? How will a Palestinian state if it is established influence the sense of belonging and identity of Palestinian Israeli citizens? Based on conversations with Palestinians in Israel, Sleeping On a Wire, like The Yellow Wind, is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the Middle East today.

Death As a Way of Life

A Personal Chronicle of the Last Ten Years from a Leading Voice of Israeli DissentWhat went wrong after Oslo? How can Israelis and Palestinians make peace? How has the violence changed their lives, and their souls? For the last ten years, David Grossman, one of Israel’s great fiction writers, has addressed these questions in a series of passionate essays and articles, writing not only as one of his country s most respected novelists and reporters, but as a husband and father and peace activist bitterly disappointed in the leaders of both sides. Appearing for the first time in America, these pieces show us the Israeli Palestinian conflict from the inside and in the moment. They are indispensable reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots and results of the fighting today.

Writing in the Dark

Recent essays on Israel, literature, and language from one of the country’s most respected and best loved voices Throughout his career, David Grossman has been a voice for peace and reconciliation between Israel and its Arab citizens and neighbors. In six new essays on politics and culture in Israel today, he addresses the conscience of a country that has lost faith in its leaders and its ideals. This collection includes an already famous speech concerning the disastrous Second Lebanon War of 2006, the war that took the life of Grossman’s twenty year old son, Uri. Moving, humane, clear sighted, and courageous, touching on literature and artistic creation as well as politics and philosophy, these writings are a cri de coeur from a heroic voice of reason at a time of uncertainty and despair.