Holy Lands
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
A witty epistolary novel, both heartwarming and heart-wrenching, about a dysfunctional family--led by a Jewish pig farmer in Israel--struggling to love and accept each other.
As comic as it is deeply moving, Holy Lands chronicles several months in the lives of an estranged family of colorful eccentrics. Harry Rosenmerck is an aging Jewish cardiologist who has left his thriving medical practice in New York--to raise pigs in Israel. His ex-wife, Monique, ruminates about their once happy marriage even as she quietly battles an aggressive illness. Their son, David, an earnest and successful playwright, has vowed to reconnect with his father since coming out. Annabelle, their daughter, finds herself unmoored in Paris in the aftermath of a breakup.
Harry eschews technology, so his family, spread out around the world, must communicate with him via snail mail. Even as they grapple with challenges, their correspondence sparkles with levity. They snipe at each other, volleying quips across the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and Europe, and find joy in unexpected sources.
Holy Lands captures the humor and poignancy of an adult family striving to remain connected across time, geography, and radically different perspectives on life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
French playwright and filmmaker Sthers swerves from harshly funny to surprisingly touching in her compact epistolary English-language debut. Harry Rosenmerck, a retired cardiologist, has moved to Nazareth and started a pig farm. Because Harry lacks even a telephone, his family resorts to communicating through letters. Harry begins an acrimonious written debate with Rabbi Moshe Cattan about raising unclean animals that eventually turns to friendship. Harry's ex-wife, Monique Duch ne, who converted to Judaism for Harry, lives in New York and writes needling harangues with only hints about her declining health. Their son, David, is a successful playwright whose latest effort falls flat. He pleads for any word from Harry, having been disowned by his father since coming out, and trades jabs with his sister Annabelle. Annabelle, distraught after breaking up with a married professor, whines her way toward a visit with her father, making unplanned detours through Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel. Caustic and gentle jokes leaven the serious concerns about Israel's militarized security, Jewish identity, and the dysfunction of Harry's family. This moving novel manages a delicate balance between humor and tenderness among a family incapable of interacting without rancor.
