Martyrs' Crossing (Ballantine Reader's Circle) [Paperback]

Amy Wilentz (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ballantine Reader's Circle | Publication Date: January 2, 2002

“SOPHISTICATED AND SUSPENSEFUL . . . TAUTLY WRITTEN . . . Wilentz knows the world she writes about very well, and her descriptions have a solid specificity that lends authority to her fiction.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“At a closed Israeli checkpoint, Marina, a Palestinian mother, clutches her ailing boy, desperate for access to Jerusalem and its doctors. When a young Israeli soldier waits too long before deciding to disobey orders, a martyr is born. Thus begins a graceful, painful, illuminating novel of the Middle East. . . . [Wilentz’s] prose tugs at the reader. . . . The characters are magnetic. . . . [This] is a very human tale of regrets, revenge, and the elusive nature of absolution.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“SO PRECISE, SO STARTLING, SO UNFORGETTABLE. . . . These characters are all pawns of history and politics, but Wilentz makes them live.”
–Los Angeles Times

“MAGNIFICENT . . . Wilentz writes with a prose style reminiscent of The New Yorker’s highest ambitions: crystalline, pure, faultlessly communicative. . . . Like the best documentaries, Martyrs’ Crossing allows us unprecedented access to a little-understood and often misrepresented part of the world.”
–Chicago Tribune

“A BRILLIANTLY RESEARCHED MEDIDATION ON THE CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE EAST . . . Martyr’s Crossing matches Damascus Gate in the quality of research and the mass of intriguing characters–and yet it remains a lean thriller.”
–The New York Observer

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A former Jerusalem correspondent for the New Yorker and 1990 National Book Critics Circle nonfiction nominee, Wilentz supplements a natural storyteller's eye for character with a reporter's grasp of swirling political detail in this complex, haunting debut novel. At a checkpoint in Jerusalem, a beautiful young Palestinian woman begs an Israeli soldier for permission to "cross over" in order to get her two-year-old son to the hospital. The soldier, Lt. Ari Doron, frantically telephones headquarters, but is rebuffed by an anonymous commander: the woman is Marina Raad Hajimi, wife of jailed Hamas terrorist Hassan Hajimi, and therefore presumptively barred from Israel during a border "closure." Within minutes, the child dies, devastating family members on both sides of the checkpoint. It turns out the little boy was the grandson of American cardiologist George Raad, a secular Palestinian patriot whose iconoclastic views are courted, but largely ignored, by the Palestinian leadership. Despite his failing health, George returns to Ramallah to be with his bereaved daughter and to shelter her from the gathering political storm, as Palestinian discontents gear up to play "Find the Soldier." The soldier, meanwhile, plagued with guilt over "his dead baby," is unable to stay out of Ramallah, where he seeks absolution from Marina and George before the newly liberated Hajimi finds him. Characters on both sides of the border are nuanced, sympathetic and deeply ambivalent, which heightens the well-crafted suspense: you don't know what will happen next because neither do they. Wilentz's insight into the region is so sharp that even the maelstrom she depicts is vivid and comprehensible, a full-fledged human tragedy from every perspective. Agent, Deborah Karl. (Mar.)Forecasts: The timeliness of this story, plus Wilentz's writing credentials, make this a sure shot for review attention and healthy sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School-In this well-crafted novel, Wilentz looks through the eyes of her sharply drawn characters to explore both the objective issues and the subjective realities that form the fabric of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An ill Palestinian child dies at an Israeli-border checkpoint while the young post commander is pressing headquarters for permission to allow the boy and his mother to cross into Israel for medical care. The Palestinian political leaders proclaim the boy a martyr, rallying crowds with a cry for vengeance: "Find the soldier." The Israeli military's doctor fashions a version of the event to shield the army from blame. From this realistic beginning, Martyrs' Crossing dramatizes how easily tragic events escalate into violence. The mother of the dead boy is American-born Marina Hajimi, who married Hassan, a Palestinian. A Hamas activist, he is imprisoned in Israel. Marina's father is an eminent American cardiologist, an intellectual who fled Palestine with his family in 1948 and who is critical of a Palestinian authority he believes is corrupt. Lieutenant Ari Doron, empathetic and "unassailably honest," finds himself affected by the pain and the beauty of this woman whose son is dead because he refused to disobey orders. The major characters are principled people, torn by grief and guilt but unwilling to be manipulated for political purposes. Some of the other characters are less nobly motivated. Teens who are interested in the Middle East will come away from the novel with a better understanding of why the conflict so defies resolution.

Ellen Raphaeli, Northern Virginia Community College, Alexandria

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (January 2, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345449835
• ISBN-13: 978-0345449832
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #354,654 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I grew up in a small, industrial town in New Jersey, a place unimaginably distant in every way from my latest home in Los Angeles, where I live with my husband and three sons. I moved to California as Arnold Schwarzenegger was making his political debut, and I wrote a book about it. But since the earthquake in Port-au-Prince in January, my heart has returned with a crash to Haiti, the country that made me, as a writer. Haitians are still dealing every day with the horror and reality of the quake. And in my way, I'm still wrestling with what it means to me to lose so much and so many. My reaction has been to write, of course -- and to attempt to focus the proper kind of outside attention on Haiti. But I'm also trying in my own way to be of use; helping to support a little boy who lost both hands when a wall fell on him, trying to put together a library of images of Haitian art that was destroyed in the quake, and even thinking about going down to help rebuild, although I am definitely more efficient with a keyboard than with a hammer. Meanwhile, my publisher is reissuing The Rainy Season, my book about Haiti, with a new, post-quake introduction. I'm amazed at how I continue to be drawn to the country and to identify with it -- to feel shattered when it is shattered, to be happy on the rare days when things are going well, to be okay in those long stretches when things are pretty much all right. I trust in a lot of cliches in these moments of enormous tragedy, the main one being this: maybe out of the rubble will emerge something new, maybe even something better, but something still beautiful, still authentic, still Haitian.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Passion and Politics: What Is Worth Killing and Dying For?, November 1, 2001

By 

Nancy C. Pace (Frederick, MD United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Martyrs' Crossing: A Novel (Hardcover)

What novel could be more timely and inviting than an intelligent, literate, readable, suspenseful, emotionally compelling, and thoughtful story treating the question: What--among the varied human experiences of family, friendship, history, culture, religion, tradition, heritage, territory, nationhood, ideals, values, competing loyalties, and the notion of truth itself--is worth living for, working for--and especially--killing and/or dying for?

To be sure, Wilentz never comes right out and asks these questions--instead, her beautifully plotted story subtly raises, explores, and offers insight into all of them, by offering a wide range of intelligent characters from varying ages, backgrounds, and experiences, who are arriving at a multiplexity of conclusions and viewpoints while facing intricately intertwined human dilemmas.

I know this book will provoke animated and thoughtful discussion in my book club.

I was first attracted to the book (when browsing in the "New Book Section" of our library) by Wilentz's beautiful writing style, as well as her very evident intellectual depth. She has clearly spent much time living in and reporting on Israel/The West Bank, but more importantly, she has thought long and respectfully about disparate approaches to politics, patriotism, and violence.

This is not a heavy, depressing book, it's a love story--in fact a compilation of moving and convincing love stories about the varieties of passionate human relationships. It's gripping--at times seeming to move inexorably toward a Greekly tragic conclusion (although I found the end surprisingly heartening.) I felt I understood each character's struggle to find integrity and meaning; Wilentz works hard to give each viewpoint a human face and a convincing history and testimony.

Wilentz has a talent for character and for realistic thoughts/dialogue. She makes all her characters appealing and believable (sometimes grotesquely so), all worthy of respect and understanding, in their individual struggles to make sense of the most difficult human challenges.

Although I'm fascinated with the political and spiritual questions Wilentz raises, and although I've read urgently in the areas of war, peace, politics, religion and philosophy, I have never been to Israel and know no Palestinians. I felt that Wilentz's pen was painfully sharp, cynical, and for the most part balanced, when aimed at the hypocrisies of both "sides," and also strongly empathetic and sympathetic, when focused on the pain and grievances of both sides.

But ultimately, this is not a book about Jews and Palestinians. It's a book about home, and integrity, and about the personal qualities, values, and actions that make a person deserve to call a building and a child and a spouse and a friend and a city and a land, "his/her own."

And although Wilentz never directly mentions the word "nationalism," I believe this is also a book about whether the concept of nationalism is ultimately helpful or hurtful to human life.

I couldn't put this book down. I loved the story, the style, the characters, the author, and learned a great deal about important issues I care deeply about. This is great writing from a great writer. I hope someday to read many more of her books....

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Only connect, May 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Martyrs' Crossing: A Novel (Hardcover)

Better reporters than Amy Wilentz have found themselves caught short by the transition from journalism to fiction (for example Jimmy Breslin, whose novels always leave me hungry for his column). But im Martyr's Crossing Amy Wilentz has vaulted across in her very first attempt. The story takes an incident that could be from today's headlines (and, tragically, tomorrow's headlines as well): the death of a child in Israel. In this case, the child is killed by asthma and the lack of proper medical treatment, not by a bullet. Also in this case the child is Palestinian. But part of the triumph of this book is the way Wilentz's characters--Israelis and Palestinians--are three dimensional human beings, not cardboard caricatures of good and evil.

There are terrorists here, and terror, and the cold political calculations of men determined to hold on to power, willing to exploit any tragedy if it serves their purposes. But Wilentz's humane and gripping narrative is a million miles from the wooden gestures of the politcal thriller. The center of her attention, and ours, is the boy's mother, Marina, American born and educated, but drawn back to the Palestine described by her father, a Harvard professor. Wilentz's description of the tensions and passions between father and daughter is superb, as is her portrayal of the almost unendurable sorrow of a mother powerless to keep her child alive. But what makes the novel even more exceptional is Wilentz's equally compelling portrayal of the Israeli who first keeps Marina from passing his checkpoint (and getting her son to the hospital) then valiantly, but vainly, attempts to help.

Wilentz offers no easy answers. Instead, she allows both sides the full weight of their tragic collision. Beautifully written, and clearly informed by careful reporting, this is a triumphant fictional debut.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book, March 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Martyrs' Crossing: A Novel (Hardcover)

Martyr's Crossing is a beautifully written and moving story with vivid characters. It has a modern hero in the conflicted young Israeli lieutenant who tries to help a Palestinian woman at a border checkpoint. It has a beautiful young mother whose bravery is heartbreaking. The book has brains and heart and elements of the thriller. It is literary. "He felt dizzy with the past, as if it were suddenly physical," Wilentz writes of a Palestinian man, visiting his Jerusalem home after 50 years away. Reading this book, the past does seem physical, and so does the wrenching present. This book brims with tastes and smells, sounds and texture, so that the place and its people come alive. One thing that strikes me as extraordinary about the book is how political it is without being partisan or overbearing. A good read.