Customer Reviews

The Hand Before the Eye

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Donald Friedman's first book, The Hand Before The Eye, is a winner. Not only did it garner the First Series Award for the Novel proffered by the Mid-List Press, it has also won my admiration and respect for the author as a truly gifted writer. Friedman handles the trials, tribulations and eventual redemption of his main character, lawyer Farbman, with ironic insight and often comic verve. His is the wit, style and intelligence of the polished contemporary novelist. The central message of his book might best be described as "God is where you make Him". It is a powerful truth.

Many novels are entertaining, exciting, engaging; a few are literature. The difference is illusive and relative, but has to do with a brilliance in the way words, story, characters, images, thoughts and settings illuminate each other. It has to do, most of all, with the way they produce a depth of experience that approaches wisdom -- offering the reader more profound insights into the way of the world.

Donald Friedman's "The Hand Before the Eye" is, remarkably for a first novel, literature. It is also very funny. Farbman, the lawyer, dealing more with the quirks of clients and the hounding of creditors than with anything he learned in law school, is all of us who find ourselves compromised, somehow unfulfilled, yearning for a greater sense of purpose. The ingredients for happiness are there, a potentially lucrative career, an attractive family and friends, but, with Farbman's undermining of them and their own very faulty construction, they do not satisfy. His quest starts with escape and sex, following a funeral.

But Farbman's escape into the embrace of an elusively honest and beautiful woman leads him into new levels of questions, as does his encounter at a religious retreat (which he attends for less than the purest motivations) with the unexpectedly unnerving presence of a mystic rabbi. Temporary escape, however, is not the answer for Farbman, now that he has glimpsed something more profound.

One of the most striking insights of Judaism is that meaning occurs in the reality and details of life, not in theories. What do you say when you get up in the morning? What do you eat? How do you put on your clothes? How and to what are you connected? Any wisdom Farbman gains cannot have meaning except as it affects and changes the life of Farbman. And it is that process that Donald Friedman describes, with brilliance and humor, so that, like other novels that are literature, it affects how we see our lives.

Farbman is a smart lawyer with successful parents, a brotherly partner, a beautiful wife, two perfect children and a good friend. His saga begins at a meeting with a Rabbi that gives him to insight into the emptiness of his success, and a hint a what is needed to turn things around. Contrary to appearances, his marriage is failing, his law practice is venal, he has no relationship with his parents or his children and his friendships will collapse. He realizes his life lacks meaning but he can't make the turn until his wife get's so sick that he is really needed. It looks as if purpose will serve a cure, but Donald Friedman is too smart for a simple story. Just when we expect him to be rewarded for his responsive behavior to his wife and children, Farbman's life crumbles from bonuses to boils. Donald Friedman has written a very important book in the guise of a funny and high paced melodrama. The book is about "Teshuva". It takes a book this good to explain that Teshuva is the "turn", or more accurately the "return", anyone seeking a spiritual connection in their life must make. Ultimately, it isn't fun; it's deadly serious. The wonderful thing about this book is that Friedman makes us laugh while he teaches us the theological formula for a sucessful life.

It is rare to encounter a book so powerful that it forces us to reevaluate the direction of our lives. For me, Donald Friedman's extraordinary first novel, The Hand Before The Eye, was a mind-bending, life-transforming experience.

Forget the fact that this is one of the funniest and saddest books you'll ever read...

Or the fact that the lawyer Farbman perfectly captures the desperation and emptiness of the workaholic life that is seemingly unavoidable at the turn of the millennium...

Or that this compelling tale ends by shattering the plate glass wall separating us from a truly fulfilling life of freedom, love, and deep connection with nature.

If you're like me, this book will at the very least launch you on a journey of spiritual exploration and career transformation. Perhaps along the way you will discover or rediscover all that is truly important in living. Bravo!

I couldn't put this book down. It is a thoroughly entertaining, but deeply involving and touching look at one man's crisis. The fact that the man is a Jewish New York-area lawyer, unhappy with work and life, may make many readers able to relate to it, but you don't have to be Jewish, a New York metro area resident, or a lawyer to have this book enthrall you. It's one of those rare books that, when you get to the end, you just wish kept on going. Highest recommendation.

This is a gutsy and engrossing book. The author keeps surprising us with his range of interests and his resourcefulness as a storyteller. The last chapter is a gem.

"The Hand Before The Eye" is a must read for all lawyers and, indeed, for anyone who has longed for more personal fulfillment. With rare insight and wit, Friedman leads us from the emotional and moral wasteland which is the grist of Farbman's everyday life to a plateau of inner contentment, all the while dissecting with precision life-like characters of our contemporary legal system and affluent suburban lifestyle. From soul-searching to belly-laughs, this book will keep you going.

Love to hate lawyers? Here's one you'll love and...well, be exasperated by. Lawyer Farbman makes all the wrong moves and trusts all the wrong people in this hip, funny, and ultimately inspiring novel. To author and lawyer Donald Friedman, nothing is sacred: he skewers the usual suspects and then some--Jews, shiksas, lawyers, mobsters, bankers, partners, wives, girlfriends, the lame and the halt--as he sends his protagonist on a fast-paced trajectory to hell. A modern day Job, Farbman teaches us the value of living simply if only by being an example of someone who can't.

This book kisses you and holds you, makes you cry and makes you laugh but mostly it offers hope. It is a journey through human emotion and ancient philosophies that tie us into a bow of dreams and wishes for a good life on this good earth. God bless the author, and may he continue to write these stories we love to live.

It is rare to encounter a book so powerful that it forces us to reevaluate the direction of our lives. For me, Donald Friedman's extraordinary first novel, The Hand Before The Eye, was a mind-bending, life-transforming experience.

Forget the fact that this is one of the funniest and saddest books you'll ever read...

Or the fact that the lawyer Farbman perfectly captures the desperation and emptiness of the workaholic life that is seemingly unavoidable at the turn of the millennium...

Or that this compelling tale ends by shattering the plate glass wall separating us from a truly fulfilling life of freedom, love, and deep connection with nature.

If you're like me, this book will at the very least launch you on a journey of spiritual exploration and career transformation. Perhaps along the way you will discover or rediscover all that is truly important in living. Bravo!