The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land: Stories by Omer Friedlander
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Web ID: 16376098Heart-rending and beautifully written.
The Man Who Sold Air In The Holy Land is a collection of eleven short stories by Israeli-born author, Omer Friedlander. In Jaffa Oranges, an elderly Jewish owner of an orange grove is visited by the granddaughter of his best friend during his youth, an Arab called Khalil Haddad. The visit brings back many fond memories of a wonderful person, but also a long-held guilt. It’s a chance to confess his terrible misdeed: does he? In Alte Sachen, a family that wanders the streets in an old VW truck, haulers of Old Things, is now bereft of their patriarch, and the youngest son, heartbroken, remains mute until the children’s dress-up on a certain Purim restores his laughter. In The Man Who Sold Air In The Holy Land, estranged from his wife, jobless, Simcha holds onto those activities that entertain his young daughter on her weekly access visit, including their double-act of selling bottles of air to American tourists. In Checkpoint, a grieving Jewish mother of a soldier continues as a volunteer activist for a women-only human rights group at the border checkpoint to make sure “the Palestinians aren’t mistreated with casual cruelty and that the soldiers and border police are doing their job properly”, in a war she doesn’t agree with. Despite their differing viewpoints, another soldier assists her when a settler is violent, and she finds herself sharing the story of her son’s death, and life. In The Sephardi Survivor, two schoolboys bring home a confused old man from the Superzol, planning to use him as their Shoah Survivor on Shoah Memorial Day. They coach Yehuda Finkielkraut on a suitably exciting story, but their plan backfires… In The Sand Collector, a Jewish schoolgirl falls for a Bedouin smuggler who collects sand and significant memories, in jars, labelling them with his neat Arabic script. Their first kiss is kept in one such jar, but their lives are so different: is their love doomed? In Scheherazade and Radio Station 97.2FM, three Israeli soldiers are sent to shut down a Beirut radio station sending out subversive broadcasts in the guise of fairy tales. The woman running it all alone calls herself Scheherazade: that should surely tell them something? In High Heels, the shoe seller’s son tells the story of the Polish ballerina’s legendary high heels to a couple he meets while night climbing: he is dazzled by them, naïve to their predatory nature. In Jellyfish in Gaza, twin brothers enact several rituals in the belief that it will keep their soldier father, their Aba, safe. When he returns, they are convinced it is not him – he is so different; they try to find the Aba they know and love. In Walking Shiv’ah, a daughter takes her demanding, crippled mother in a home-made rickshaw on a difficult and dangerous seven-day trek to find out which of the family’s soldier sons has been killed in the war. In The Miniaturist, dull, ordinary Adinah meets beautiful, graceful Esther in an Israeli refugee camp. Adinah’s father explains why she cannot be friends with the girl: their families have been rivals since their ancestors were miniaturists in Spain. Now, “We had lost everything, and all that remained was the memory of our rivalry.” Some of the stories are very moving, and in each one, Friedlander certainly evokes his setting and mood with some wonderful descriptive prose: “The stuff you could find, the secrets people’s objects revealed to you. It wasn’t just garbage. These were objects that had stopped working, old technology, outdated devices. It was like working in a time machine. We were excavators and archaeologists, not scavengers and dumpster divers.” Heart-rending and beautifully written. This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and John Murray Press Two Roads.
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Heartbreaking and Funny
Born in Jerusalem in 1994 and growing up in Tel Aviv, Omer Friedlander is the talented under- thirty author of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land. Set predominately in Israel, this short story collection depicts the often difficult, heart-breaking lives of ordinary people, soldiers and civilians. Yet Friedlander deftly captures the humor that is part of those troubled lives, making readers wonder at the complexity of life. The stories cover central characters of all ages, frequently employing first-person narrators. In the opening story, “Jaffa Oranges,” a Jewish octogenarian, the narrator, receives a visit from his childhood best friend’s granddaughter, who wants to learn more about her grandfather Khalil Haddad, a Palestinian who had escaped Israel for London where the granddaughter grew up. Although the narrator shares the two boys’ amusing childhood adventures, he wants to tell her something more. In “Alte Sachen,” the teenage narrator has taken over his deceased father’s junk business while also looking after his eight-year-old brother Shoni, who desperately wants to believe his father has been reincarnated. Torn between his responsibilities and his desire to be a more typical teenager, the older boy faces difficult decisions. The third-person title story, “The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, depicts a divorced father’s adventures with his young daughter Lali during the one day a week he can spend with her. Their con-game of selling bottled air is only one of these amusing, but ultimately poignant, adventures. The Chinese fusion restaurant menu made me laugh aloud as did the father’s almost endless imagination, but all laughter stops with the final sentence. “Checkpoint” is the first-person narrative of a middle-aged Israeli human rights activist who has volunteered for nearly two decades at a West Bank checkpoint, using her video camera to ensure the Israeli military guards’ fair treatment of Palestinians. Haunted by memories of dead son, a soldier, she faces her own danger and her emotions. One of the funniest, but also saddest, stories in the collection is “Jellyfish in Gaza,” narrated by one of two young fraternal twin brothers living in a kibbutz situated on one side of a barbed wire fence separating them from Palestinian Gaza. Filled with creative ideas to protect their father when he is sent to Gaza to help with the demolition of Palestinian property and force Palestinian removal from the area, the boys again call upon their creativity when he returns as a stranger. Packed with vivid and frequently amusing or absurd details and anecdotes, Friedlander’s eleven touching stories will open readers’ eyes and imprint themselves on readers’ minds. .
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Customer review from barnesandnoble.com