Grossman dedicated the book to his son Uri who was killed in the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Although the book was begun much earlier and intended to be some kind of a magical shield that would protect his sons, Uri's death haunts the novel with a dose of reality.
Onto the plot itself. Two best friends Ilan and Avram fall in love with the same girl Ora. Ora picks Ilan although she loves them both. Ilan is rational, Avram is impulsive; Ilan is nerdy but Avram is brilliant. Ora has a son Adam through Ilan, and several years later has another son Ofer through Avram. Both Adam and Ofer are brought up as brothers by Ora and Ilan. If all this seems an "ordinary" tale of a love triangle, throw Israel into the mix and the story just gets seriously complicated. Avram and Ilan both serve in the Army during the 1973 war, and Avram is captured and tortured by Egyptians. At the end of the war Avram is a broken man who wants to have nothing to do with anything and stays away from Ilan, Ora and even Ofer. Ora and Ilan are plagued by guilt and that runs through their life and the novel.
When Ofer voluntarily re-enlists after his military duty ended, Ora is plagued by fear of "notifiers" and refuses to stay home awaiting news about her son. Instead she decides to runaway from home and hike the Gailee just as she had planned with Ofer, but this time picks a reluctant Avram as her hiking partner. She decides that the best way to keep Ofer safe was to narrate his entire life story to Avram in detail as she hopes that the telling of his story will act as a magical shield. The entire novel is then told in a stream of consciousness narrative from Ora to Avram. Does the hike save Ofer, does it save Avram and what about the torn and tortured relationships among all the lead characters... you have to read the book to find out!
Through this narrative we get a glimpse of private lives in Israel set against the political climate. As Ora recounts Ofer's life from the moment he was born, his first steps, the love between the brothers, his first love and the subsequent loss we are caught in this world and just like Ora are fearing for Ofer's safety.We also understand what it means to love your country and your family and how does a mother choose between the two when she is forced to! Just like in aboriginal cultures when the boy undergoes initiation rites and is for the first time separated from his mother, in Israel the conscription appears to change the relationship between mothers and sons, when the sons leave as boys and return as men. Grossman manages to portray a picture of ordinary people trying to lead ordinary lives under extraordinary circumstances.
One small gripe - Grossman could have expanded the role of Sami, the Arab cab driver who is an integral part of Ilan's family. The relationship between Sami and Ora is sketched so well, and we get a very small glimpse into lives of Arabs living inside Israel that it leaves us longing for more. I guess I have to pick up a Palestinian written book to get the other side.
A very good companion to the book is the BBC World Book Club interview with the author. Overall it was a great experience reading the book, although there were times when i got impatient with the stream of consciousness and was tempted to go to the last page to see if Ofer survives, but I am glad I stuck with it and savored it.
