The Seven Good Years: A Memoir

In his newest book of short stories and essays, The Seven Good Years: A Memoir, a title that references the Bible story of Joseph, who interprets Pharaoh's dream that there would be seven good years of plenty and then seven bad years of famine, Etgar Keret has written some of his best material. He is a prolific short story author with five other books to his name.  He writes about life in Israel, in a satirical, honest, truthful way.  His stories can seem to be complex, contradictory and sometimes ambiguous but always at the end of each story, Keret has delivered a message, though sometimes coded, his point of view.

In this book, Keret, writes about experiences that happen during the first seven years of his son, Lev's life and the last seven years of his Dad's life.  The last time he will be both a son and a father at the same time.  He talks about life as a father and how the birth of a child changes a person.  He writes about his relationship with his wife.  He also writes about everyday life in Israel.  He writes about his relationship with both his brother and his sister, who has become a strictly religious Orthodox Jew, the mother of 11 children.

In the essay titled, "Bombs Away" he gives you an idea what it is like to live in a country under fire.
He talks about a friend coming to visit who tells him that the Iranian leader wants the total destruction of Israel even at the expense of Iran itself.  His friend says why continue with life if we are going to be destroyed.  Etgar Keret explains to his wife what is the use of wasting time and money to fix up the house if we are all going to be decimated?  So they start to let everything go.  They do not do house repairs, his wife stops using the dishwasher and only washes dishes on an immediate need basis.  They stop mopping the floor and removing the garbage.  Then Keret has a dream that a peace treaty is signed with the Iranians.  "That hit her really hard.  Maybe S. was wrong", she whispered in terror.  "Maybe the Iranians won't attack.  And we'll be stuck with this filthy, rundown apartment, with debts and your students, whose papers you promised to give back in January and haven't even started to mark...."  Finally, he writes, his wife fell back to sleep but he could not.  "So I got up and swept the living room.  First thing tomorrow morning, I will call a plumber."

This is the clever and interesting way he starts a story off in one direction and then twists around to make a point he wants to bring home about the way his family experiences life as Israelis and as second generation Holocaust survivors.  He talks about his parents, his father who has recently passed away from cancer and his mother who remembers her life in World War II Poland.
He shares memories of his time spent with his father at the end of his life.  He talks about visiting Poland on book tours and purchasing a house in Warsaw, Poland to honor his mother.

He talks about bringing up a child in Israel and how everyday activities of life there are punctuated by the attacks of rockets and bombs.  How he and his wife try to keep life as normal as possible and also try to make staying safe a game, trying not to scare their son while explaining difficult everyday questions of a young child.

He writes about the feeling of writing his first story, which gives the reader insight into what he felt like being a young soldier int he Israeli army, "I wrote my first story twenty-six years ago, in one of the most heavily guarded army bases in Israel  I was nineteen then, a terrible, depressed soldier who
was counting the days to the end of his compulsory service.  I wrote the story during an especially long shift in an isolated, windowless computer room deep in the bowels of the earth.  I stood in the middle of that neon-lit freezing room and stared at the page of print.  I couldn't explain to myself why I wrote it or exactly what purpose it was supposed to serve.  The fact that I typed all those made up sentences was exciting, but also frightening.  I felt as if I had to find someone to read the story right away, and even if he didn't like it  or understand it, he could calm me down and tell me that writing it was perfectly all right, and not just another step on my road to insanity."

As the reader, you can really feel like you are there in Keret's shoes.  He writes with such passion and feeling communicating to readers outside Israel what it truly feels like to live under the pressures and uncertainty of everyday life there.  Etgar Keret brings the conflict in Middle East right into your living room, where you are sitting comfortably on the couch reading, he makes you feel just a little bit uncomfortable.

Fat Girl Walking

Ok, so the full title is Fat Girl Walking Sex, Food, Love and Being Comfortable in Your Skin...Every Inch Of It.  This book with the mouthful of a title was written by Brittany Gibbons which she then also clarifies as Brittany Herself.

This was not a book I had heard about or read reviews about...it just jumped off the shelf at me while scanning the shelves for other books.  The title caught my eye and how could I  resist.

Ok so this is a fun book to read if you need a break in the  literature you're reading.
It is not only light but frivolous.  There are some funny vignettes, but unless you know Brittany
personally, I am not sure how important to know about her life as a heavy young person and what
it is like being over weight through high school and college.  I was looking to see if I could relate to her or if she was offering some great advice to those of us who are also in the same weight class.

She is clever and witty...she has made a success of her life with a husband and three children, a TED talk and now a book.  In the end weight isn't the deciding factor for happiness or success.  But I still would like to lose those last 10 pounds ....I think I would be happier.

House of Thieves

Charles Belfoure does not disappoint in this second novel.  Quickly on the heels of his amazingly written and well received novel The Paris Architect, Belfoure has wowed me again.  There is certainly a similar theme running through this story about an architect who seems to have no option but to compromise his ethical beliefs and use his knowledge of architecture for evil.

In this novel you are drawn into the world of New York in 1886.  There is a clear division between the wealthy society life around Central Park and the underworld of life in the Tenderloin and Bowery districts of the City.  The Cross family are distant, relatively poor relations to the famed Knickerbocker society.  These families comprise the descendants of the original Dutch founders of the New Amsterdam.  John Cross, a successful architect and his wife Helen, a society wife live with their three children, George, a Harvard graduate,  Julia, a debutante and Charlie the youngest brother.

In an effort to help his son George out of a gambling debt, John Cross gets involved with the underworld gang, Kent's Gents, led by James T. Kent.  Kent is a well-bred, Princeton educated man from a wealthy mercantile family in Baltimore.  He trained as a doctor, but found that he got a adrenaline rush from committing crimes.  He runs an extensive crime organization.  Cross is just the type of partner he has been looking for.  With Cross' knowledge of architecture his gang can increase their portfolio.

With wonderful descriptive prose Belfoure creates both the elite social society and their whirlwind high living party world and the colorful back streets underworld.  He brings out the moral dilemmas that face both the people with everything and the people with nothing.  He develops the characters so well you are not sure who is justified and who you think is guilty.  As an architect himself, Belfoure has the insight and imagination to bring to the written page a character that designs buildings and then how to use that knowledge to outwit the security systems of that time period.

This is the beginning of the Pinkerton guard force and the security systems we use today.

Candy Corn Murder

Leslie Meier has written another fun mystery story, this one is her 24th mystery celebrating yet another holiday.  This time it is October and the residents of Tinker's Cove are about to celebrate Halloween.  This year they are doing it up in a big way with a Halloween Festival that last for the week with different events every day.

There are the usual activities like the largest pumpkin competition and the how many candy corn in the jar contest.  The scuba diving club wants to have a pumpkin carving contest underwater and then there is the cataplut a pumpkin the farthest contest.  Just as the festival is in full swing a body is found.  This time not only is Joan covering the murder for the newspaper, she has an added incentive to uncovering the murderer and why a man has been murdered in Tinker Cove.  Her husband is the prime suspect in this case.  She needs to clear not only the family's good name, but get her husband out of jail.

This is on the surface a cosy mystery story, but running through the book is the undercurrent of an important ethical problem that we are dealing with in society.  The backdrop is a story of domestic violence and abuse.  So while the town is celebrating Halloween, they are also gearing up and getting ready for a "Take Back the Night" march to lend their voices and send the message that violence against women must end now.

A fun mystery novel with a serious message.

Schlepping Through The Alps

Sam Apple, who I picture as a kind of nebbish, nerdy type from New York City, heads off to Austria to find out how people living there in the 2000's feel about anti-Semitism and Jewish people.

Apple meets Hans Breuer, an Austrian shepherd, who is performing Yiddish folk songs and showing a slide presentation of sheep herding in the Alps, in a classroom at NYU.  He is intrigued and decides to leave his personal troubles behind in New York and apprentice with Hans herding sheep and understand how this young man has become the modern day "Wandering Jew".

This book follows Sam Apple has he tries to uncover the anti-Semitism he is positive is still prevalent in Austria today as he interviews the citizens of Vienna and other people Sam introduces him to as they travel the countryside with 625 sheep.  Apple also interviews Hans and the people in his life to find out how a young half Jewish shepherd came to sing Yiddish folk songs as he wanders the hills.
This is both a look back at the history of Austria during World War Two and how far this generation is disconnected from their history.

Apple is searching for answers as he interviews Austrians sitting at a cafe about their feelings about Jews, the war and the concentration camps.  Over and over he is told that one, the average person was unaware of what was happening in the camps, and two, that being born after the war, they have done nothing wrong and are not responsible for what happened during the war.  Apple begins to wonder to himself, "Although I remained firm in my belief that Austria had a long way to go before the country would be  ready to move on, I hadn't stopped to think exactly what it would take to satisfy me.  Certainly Austria can't mull over it's war crimes forever.  Vienna now had a beautiful memorial to the Jewish victims of the Nazis; a new settlement had just been reached with the Jewish community on reparations for slave laborers; and the Austrian public schools now teach about the Holocaust and take students on trips to concentration camps.  What, exactly, would the Austrians have to do before the country would be off the hook in my mind?"


Interestingly, Apple also wonders why Jews who had either escaped Austria during the war or had lived through the horrific camps during the war, came back to Austria to live after the war.  Apple wonders if they have regretted those decisions over the years or if they feel they are welcome in the country today.  He interviews a petite elderly woman, who was in England during the war and came back and worked at a Communist newspaper after the war, "I thought they were waiting for us to come home and build a new Austria.  But I was wrong.  Nobody wanted us.  Nobody helped us find a job or a flat.  It wasn't about being Jewish or Communist.  They just thought we were on the wrong side."  They thought the Jews had been on the side of the enemy.  The woman explains there was a new "we" feeling and the refugees disturbed this feeling.

Sam Apple grows as a person as he travels with Hans, his wife, his mistress and Han's sons, living the way of life of a shepherd.  He matures and learns about himself during this experience also.  He reminisces about growing up with his grandmother, Bashy.  He explores his relationships with women and why they don't workout or last.  Like a boy on his Bar Mitzvah journey, Apple returns to New York, a man.

The Lost Concerto

The Lost Concerto, written by Helanie Mario is a fast moving suspense novel.  You have to pay close attention to follow the political and espionage aspects of the story.  The plot moves along at a slow musical andante pace as the storyline unfolds, the danger builds and the romance develops.   Your pulse will quicken as the good guys fight the bad guys in a darkened church cloister.  The character development is well done and the reader definitely finds himself entrenched in the plot hoping that certain characters to win and overcome the dark forces of evil.

A beautiful woman is killed as her son escapes and the question is left in the air, where is the important diary naming names and the lost manuscript of a never before heard Concerto by Beethoven?  This is the beginning of an international spy thriller that keeps the reader trying to figure out as the intrigue is being uncovered.  Reading along to keep track of who the good players are and who is lying to whom.  Traveling between the United States and France to follow the killer and the search for the information that can reveal all.  There are beautiful descriptions of the France both the countryside and the the city of Paris.  There are also wonderful descriptions of music.

We meet Maggie O'Shea, a concert pianist who owns a music store, mother of Brian, who is also a consummate musician about to have his first child with his young wife.  Sofia, Maggie's best friend has been murdered, believed by the hand of her husband, Victor Orsini and their young son has disappeared.  Maggie's husband, Johnny has also died in a boating accident and she is having trouble getting on with her life.  The players now start to get more complicated as CIA agent
Simon Sugarman enters the picture along with retired Afghanistan army veteran, Colonel Michael Jefferson Beckett is assigned to keep Maggie safe.  There are a few more characters that run throughout the story and the plot picks up the pace as a deadline for finding and stopping a potential bombing comes closer.  It is a story of love and loss and vengeance and courage.

This story touches on the idea that Hitler and the Nazis were confiscating the artwork of Jewish artists and collectors.  But this is not really a book about that time period or the search and recovery of those artifacts.  This is a modern day suspense novel filled with political intrigue that brings in the CIA and even the Yale University club, Skull and Bones.  This is a novel pulled from the pages of leading newspapers.   It is also based on the experiences of United States servicemen, for their remarkable patriotism, bravery, strength and sacrifice, who the author says, in her acknowledgments, the characters, "....Colonel Beckett and Zachary Law could not have 'come to life' without their stories and inspiration."

My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past

Jennifer Teege writes passionately about her discovery has an adult that she has roots in the Nazi party.  Having grown up as an adopted foster child she has always been aware of her racial difference to her adoptive family.  Taken in by a loving family at the age of three and having been adopted at the age of six by the same family she has vague memories of her mother and maternal Grandmother.

When one day as a married adult woman with two children of her own, she opens a book in the central library in Hamburg, Germany to look at a man with familiar features and realize that is her Grandfather.  The book she picks up has the curious title,  I Have to Love My Father, Don't I?  The subtitle of this book reads, The Life Story of Monika Goeth, Daughter of the Concentration Camp Commandant from "Schindler's List".   As Jennifer Teege looks at the book in her hands she realizes that she is looking at a book written by her mother about her grandfather, Amon Goeth.
An extremely cruel and influential figure in the Nazi party, Teege is shocked to learn about her connection to this man.  Her grandfather is exposed to the world in the movie, "Schindler's List".  
Teege realizes the connection between Amon Goethe and Oscar Schindler,  "....drinking buddy and adversary: Two men born in the same year, one a murderer of Jews, the other their savior."

Teege had spent four years living in Israel in her young adult years.  She has a degree from Tel Aviv University in Middle Eastern and African studies.  She is fluent in the Hebrew language.  She has some very close friends who are Israelis, whose families escaped Eastern Europe and settled in Israeli living through and surviving the Holocaust.

Jennifer has to rethink her whole life experience.  Teege finds her life divided between the two time periods she has lived in, "A before, when she lived without knowledge of her family's past, and an after, living with that knowledge."   She spends quite a lot of time explaining in this book about how she comes to grips with the thought that she has the same blood following through her that Amon Goethe did.  She looks into the history of the time, what Goethe did in the concentration camp and what his family, her grandmother and mother knew while he was carrying out these atrocities.

This book is the way Jennifer Teege worked through her discovery and how she has been able to make it part of her narrative.  She has found a way to accept her ancestry and make the future better based on the past.