The Chalk Artist

The Chalk Artist is the newest novel by author, Allegra Goodman.  She has written another terrific plot that gives the reader food for thought.

This time the novel centers around the gaming industry and the children and adults, who are totally caught up in it.  They are glued to their computers and the virtual friendships they think they are making inside the game.  Goodman shows us how it becomes an all consuming lifestyle to the detriment of school, work and real relationships.

Aeroflakes or chalk dust, that is how our characters see the world.  Aiden and Diana are twins, who are facing the teen years each with their own inadequacies.  Aiden is the conventional nerd, has a hard time fitting with other kids in school socially.  He has found the world of on line gaming a great escape.  He can be tough and dangerous int he game, where he is shy and intimidated in real life.  It has taken over his life.  He is locked away in his room and always on his computer even though his mother has forbid it.  Diana wants to be a good twin and not report on her brother.  She also has personal image problems and only one friend.  She writes in her journal about her feelings, which her teacher can read.

Aiden and Diana are working against the pull of the computer game to be successful in school and at home with their mother and their friends.

The teacher is Nina, the daughter of the Arcadia the role playing game company founder.   She is trying to find a way to each the children in her classes the beauty of literature and poetry.   She is fighting against the world her father is helping to promote.  She sees the danger in this unreal world of aeroflakes, which are all temporary and disappear in a moment.

She meets Collin, who is working as a waiter in a Harvard Square bar along with other odd jobs.  He is the Chalk Artist, who draws beautiful paintings on the sidewalk to be washed away in the next rain.
He is lacking in self confidence, which Nina wants to help him find.  She gets him a job at her father’s gaming company.

Nina and Collin must work through all the pitfalls of romance, love and work against the pull of the gaming world to either lose their relationship or come out winners in the end.

The Melancholy Menorah

The Melancoly Menorah written by Libi Astaire is another fun,light read from this terrific author.

I love Libi Astaire and all her Jewish Regency mystery novels. The gentleman sleuth, Ezra Melamed along with General Well’ngone , the leader of the pickpocket boys are so wonderfully described that you can see them in your mind’s eye as you are reading. These are my favorite recurring characters. The mysteries are also always clever and offer a good twist at the end when Mr. Melamed reveals the culprit. 

This is a light entertaining mystery series with a great historical perspective on Jewish life in Regency England.  In this story it is the week before Chanukah and everyone is getting ready to celebrate.  As is the custom in the Great Synagogue of England there is a special menorah that is lit at the evening service each night of the holiday and then the men go home to light a menorah in each home and have family dinner.  In this book there is a mystery surrounding the synagogue’s menorah.  As Mr Melamed uncovers the troublemaker and unravels the reasons behind the crime, we also learn about the Jewish practice of this community.  We meet the members of the shul and their wives and children.

We also learn about the less wealthy members of the community.  There are three tiers of society, the wealthy, the shopkeepers who are not as successful and then the people either in a poor house or in these stories, orphans in a home or the young boys who run as pickpockets for General Welln’gone.  He is very much a Shylock type of character.  

I do find that Astaire writes in a beautifully descriptive way that brings the characters and synagogue and its menorahs into full color pictures in my mind.

Waking Lions

Ayelet Gunnar-Goshen has written an intriguing, yet disquieting novel that makes us look at our feelings of self importance, prejudice and inner moral fiber.  It makes the reader think, what would I do in this situation?

Eitan Green is a neurosurgeon, who has relocated from a prestigious Tel Aviv hospital because of a disagreement with the head doctor.  Ironically it is Eitan’s ethical conscience that leads to his transfer to the outpost of a hospital in Beersheba.  One night shortly after transferring, still angry at this change in his career plans, he is driving through the desert on his way home from work. When he  takes his eyes off the road for a moment and hits a man walking along the side of the road.  In a moment of panic, as he gets out and looks at the man laying on the road, he makes a choice to save the life he knows, with his wife and two young sons, leaving the scene of the accident.

Seen only by the widow, Sikrit, who then comes and blackmails the doctor not for money but for medical care for the people who live in the Eritrean neighborhood of illegal immigrants from northeast Africa.

At first Eitan sees all these sick and injured illegals as one and the same, but over time he grows to realize his prejudice and see not only the patients but Sikrit for who they are beyond their skin color.

His wife, ironically, is the police detective assigned to the case of the hit and run driver.  As the story unfolds there is a sense of suspense that I found unnerving.  It kept me on the edge of my seat, as I waited for the happy family life that Eitan and his wife, Liat have built with their young sons to unravel.

This is a psychological tale of suspense that examines the refugee crisis, through a collision of cultures.  Every character, as the plot reveals, has a complicated relationship to the story.  No one is completely innocent.  

This novel explores a side of Israel society little talked about in the west.  This is a novel of raw disturbing exploration of the high price of walking away.  It could be from the scene of an accident or from the crisis of prejudice in Israel or in America.