by עמוס עוז
First published 2016
Shmuel Ash drifts through Jerusalem in 1959, his biblical studies leading nowhere until he takes a job caring for Gershom Wald, a sharp-tongued elderly intellectual. The arrangement comes with an unexpected complication: Atalia Abravanel lives in the same stone house. The daughter of a dead Zionist leader, she draws Shmuel's attention while maintaining careful distance from him. As winter settles over the divided city, the three inhabitants navigate their strange domestic arrangement. Wald's bitterness runs deep, shaped by personal losses and political disappointments. Atalia carries her own burden of family history and unfulfilled expectations. Shmuel finds himself caught between his growing feelings for Atalia and his responsibility to Wald, all while questioning his own beliefs about loyalty, betrayal, and belonging. The old house keeps its secrets as the unlikely trio confronts what it means to live with the weight of history in a young nation still defining itself.
Genres: fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Jerusalem
Period: 1959
1 pages · MP3 CD · Blackstone Publishing