Talking to the Enemy [Hardcover]

Avner Mandelman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0778011089 | ISBN-13: 978-0778011088 | Publication Date: October 1998

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shaped the consciousness of a generation, but never before has it been brought to life in such vivid and telling prose. Part Tim O'Brien and part Bernard Malamud, Avner Mandelman's Talking to the Enemy ranges from boisterously entertaining tales of domestic squabbles to dark narratives from disillusioned soldiers. Awarded the Jewish Book Award when it was published in Canada and supplemented with recent stories, Talking to the Enemy is the powerful American debut of an international favorite.Pity draws the reader through the descending layers of horror of an Israeli soldier who is party to an assassination attempt gone terribly wrong. InTerror a man recalls a traumatic childhood incident that taught him family comes first - before justice, before fear. On a lighter note,Mish-Mash is a comical tornado set off when a winning lottery ticket is discovered in a less-than-conventional family, best described asSholem Aleichem writes Peyton Place on speed (Montreal Gazette). Underneath their often brash exteriors Mindelman's characters search for reconciliation and fulfillment in a land where conflict is a part of everyday life. Mandelman ensnares readers in intense plot-driven narratives that are pierced through with unexpected and ingenious twists.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mandelman, an Israeli living in Toronto, complicates the underside of Israeli culture, teasing out the roots of violence and prejudice in this alternately dark and humorous collection, which won the Jewish Book Award when first published in Canada. Mickey, a Mossad agent and son of Holocaust survivors, narrates several pieces spanning his lifetime, including "Terror," in which he betrays his five-year-old brother and suffers a beating from his father, learning the hard way that "family comes first," a lesson that morphs into his reigning ideology: "Is it good for my people?" "Pity" details the disastrous results—and the chink in Mickey's hardened, vengeful bluster—when he and his colleagues botch a two-week stake-out of a Nazi war criminal in Paris. In "Black," the young narrator recalls his Ashkenazi family's unlovely rejection of his cousin's dark-skinned Moroccan bride. Mandelman strikes a lighter note with the hilariously convoluted "Mish-Mash," about Uncle Nathan Berkovitch's polygamous household—his concubine, his two wives and one of their lovers—and their conflict over a winning lottery ticket. With these agile, vernacular stories, Mandelman takes a clear-sighted yet empathetic view of a fraught nation. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Beneath the surface of the often sparse prose lies evocative, unanswered questions about humanity. Every story delivers a thoroughly engrossing read with an unforgettable ending.Born in Israel in 1947, AVNER MANDELMAN served in the Israeli Air Force during the Six-Day War and has for four decades split his time between Paris, California, and Canada. Mandelman's stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories 1995, The Journey Prize Stories, and The 1996 Pushcart Prize XX. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Oberon Pr (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0778011089
• ISBN-13: 978-0778011088
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

More About the Author

For more information about Avner Mandelman and his published work, please visit www.avnermandelman.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant stories, October 24, 2007

By 

Edward (Florida) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Talking to the Enemy: Stories (Paperback)

This is really one of the major achievements when it comes to literature about Israel written in English. These fierce, unsparing stories tell us a great deal about the costs of being tough, of unending violence, of the suppression of softer human qualities. Mandelman's language perfectly captures the landscape, the anxieties, the sense of loss of contemporary Israel. There is a steady proliferation of fiction about Israel but this is the real thing.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten times more powerful than 'Munich', where is Mandelman now?, March 14, 2009

By 

Northwest (Maple Leaf) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Talking to the Enemy: Stories (Paperback)

A long time ago I read a short story, 'Pity', in 'Best American Stories 1995'. The story was an intense tale of Israeli secret service hunting a Nazi. It blew me away. It took over ten years before I tried to hunt down more from the writer, Avner Mandelman. This is the only other fiction of his I've been able to find, and it is incredible. It carries ten times the power of the film 'Munich'. The title story brought me to tears. Mandelman shows the futility and absurdity of the tension in the Middle East in such an intimate, real, and powerful manner. This book should be required reading for anyone who cares about human conflict.

I only wonder why Mandelman has not built a career. Evidently, he runs the investment firm Giraffe Capital, and is the author of 'The Sleuth Investor', a tome about financial strategies. There's another book titled 'Cuckoo', but it seems out of print, and 'Talking to the Enemy' has a story with same name. What happened? Sometimes, I guess, the life of the writer is too painful too pursue, and based on these stories, I can see why Mandelman perhaps would have chosen a career with less headaches, like heart surgeon or investor.

'Talking to the Enemy: Stories' should stay in the public's mind, and hopefully one day Mandelman will write a novel or more stories.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating Stories--Highly Recommended, July 28, 2007

By 

George Baral (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Talking to the Enemy: Stories (Paperback)

Mandelman has crafted some provocative, haunting vignettes. These stories go quickly, but I had to put the book down after each one to reflect on what I had just experienced. I had to finish each story in one sitting, though, even though I was (slightly) late for appointments twice. These stories of Israeli life and emotions were quite moving, and like good literature should be, slightly disturbing.