(Full disclaimer: Thank you to Other Press for sending me a copy of the book.)

I  always judge books by their covers.  I have no remorse over this, and it’s lead me to great selections.  Based on simply cover alone, I surmised that The Debba is a spy thriller, much like The Moscow Rules, which would result in someone lying facedown in an unmarked sewer in Cairo.

So, for the next release, I recommend  a cover change that will appeal more to the author’s intended demographic:

Now there is something that draws my eye immediately.

Fortunately,   the book turned out to be a real page turner and an incredible philosophical exercise in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I loved it, and I think it’s an important read for anyone interested in engaging on debate about hamatzav.

First things first:  If you have a set stance on Israel/Palestine that you will never change your mind on, you will hate this book.  It will drive you crazy because it refuses to take sides and offer simple black-white messages and consists of multiple twists and turns.  In general, I think there’s a lot to take away and to discuss long after you finish reading it.

The book starts,in 1977, with a phone call to David Starkman, ex-Israeli living with his Polish girlfriend in Canada, having renounced his Israeli citizenship,  while having nightmares dating back to his army service.  His father, who he has not talked to in seven years,  has been murdered in Tel Aviv.  Despite his extreme discomfort with going back to Israel, he books a ticket on the next flight and is soon in the country he hasn’t been to in almost a decade to figure out what happened to his father.

Tel Aviv Purim Parade, 1940s.

The descriptions of Israel are spot-on without being cloying and obvious and, I think, meant to make the reader homesick.  When David first gets off the plane late at night, he describes, “In a flash, the nocturnal smells converged on me like starved furies.  Orange blossoms; the salty smell of the sea; the dust; the hot tarmac.  I steeled myself and walked on. The hot wind ruffled my hair.”

When he lands, he stays with his army friend, Ehud and his girlfriend, Ruti, with whom David shares a past history (the prehistory, as the book often describes).  “An ancient Mercedes cab, its four doors dented, took me to Ibn Gvirol Street. The driver, a muscular man with a close-cropped head, assiduously avoidd looking at me.  I paid him…and got off at the corner of Eliyahu Street. Darkness enveloped everything, thick and fragrant like breath. The green glow of the streetlamps seeped through the tzaftzafa trees; white bedsheets, flapping slowly like ghosts, hung on clotheslines. A gray cat slunk into a yard. Nothing seemed to have changed since I left.”

It’s obvious that David loves the country of Israel while at the same time hating the army top-secret missions he was implicated in that caused him to leave.  Tel Aviv is described perfectly: Mediterranean, worn, dusty, hot, and, yet, completely loveable. The city is as much a character in the book as any of the others Mandelman creates- Amzaleg, the Sephardic police detective who helps David, David’s uncle Mordechai, and the ever-growing gangs of Shin Bet, internal security services.

As David begins to try to understand who killed his father, the police become less friendly and tell him not to get involved, to go back to Canada.  This makes him want to press further, and he discovers that his father’s death is possibly related to a play he co-wrote with Rubin Paltiel, called The Debba, which sparked Israeli-Arab riots the first and only time it was staged in the 1940s in Haifa due to its controversial content regarding Israeli-Arab relations.  His father’s will stipulates that the play must be put on again in order for David to receive the money, and somehow, everyone around him discourages it.  The story revolves around the mystery of the play and David’s role in it, as well as his father’s role in the 1948 War for Independence and in killing an Arab terrorist, Abu Jalood,  and unravels quite satisfactorily at the end.

Tel Aviv, 1948

I loved this book for many reasons, even though I hate mystery novels, stuff with murder in it, and books that try to wrap up Israel in a couple hundred pages.   First is that the ending is a complete surprise and really left me thinking about the book for several days afterwards. Second is that it gives an inside look at Israel in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as the days of the Israeli War of Independence, and it really leads you to believe that nothing is solid in history.

When I first learned Israeli history, I learned that all of the first pioneers to Israel were brave and strong, building the Jewish homeland, and there was no room for reinterpretation.  This is certainly not the case: the pioneers were not automatons and had human emotions,  some of which led to hard decisions, and this kind of behavior is shown clearly in the book.

I also loved this book because it really made me feel like I was in Israel during that time period.  The author’s clever use of inserting Hebrew and Arabic phrases throughout the text to get just enough effect and not oversaturate with stereotype, as well as the descriptions of the fresh cucumbers and sitting at Cafe Kassit really opened up Israel of the 1970s for me.

It’s true that, without at least a bit of knowledge about Israeli history, you could get lost in some of the terminology and references.  But discovering is always half the fun.

You can buy it here.

Note: This book graciously provided to me by Hannah Friedman.

I spent approximately 45% of high school in my room and crying because I was weird/no one “got” me/had self-esteem issues/was working on homework until 2 am/had a Nutella emergency.

Hannah Friedman’s high school experiences were even worse, mainly because she had a monkey instead of a sister, but also because she had the additional pressure of a private school.   So much worse, in fact, that she wrote a book called Everything Sucks about her formative years in a private school in New York.

This book blew away my expectations. Most people my age (me included) are horrible at writing at the autobiographical level because we don’t have enough talent or life experience to adequately go all Ulyssess on our memories.  Evidence?  Any of my previous posts.

But, Friedman’s first published work is very well-written, and a book I could relate to with the frustrations of the teens.  Judging from reactions of others, the connection holds true for many.   I couldn’t relate to everything because I’d never done hard drugs,  had a monkey as a sister, or pressured myself to get into Yale.  But the angst is still the same and the emotions Friedman describes so accurately is something I could truly relate to.

What blew me away was the amount of honesty (raw honesty, as many reviews of the book write.)  Hannah put into her writing, about sex, about boys, and about her emotions throughout high school. She put all of herself into this book, and if you’re interested in an American private school perspective on high school, as well as the final argument on why  private school is no way different than public school, this book is a great read.

Here’s my interview with Hannah below. I  loved picking her brain because I want to plagiarize incorporate some of the methods she used when I’m writing my own novel in November.

VB: How did you decide what to reveal about yourself? Did you consider the reaction of friends and family when you wrote it (there is some very embarrassing content), particularly given your experiences with the magazine in high school?

HF: Ah, a very good point. I was certainly nervous about backlash… , but I also knew that I really wanted to address all the things I hadn’t been able to find information about growing up. All the absurdity of modern education, the hysteria of girl culture, stigmas about sex and drugs. I knew that if I undertook this project I wanted to be as candid as possible, so that’s what I always returned to when I got nervous.

VB: You talk about the editing process at the very end of the book-how long did this book take you to write? How did you know you were “done’?

HF: I knew I was done when the publisher sent this baby to print- I knew there was nothing else I could change, but that doesn’t mean I was 100% satisfied. I don’t think you ever can be. That being said, I had gone through many drafts and I knew that at least it was close to what I had imagined it could be. All told the book took about a year to write and edit and go to print.

VB: Did you have a specific audience in mind as you wrote it?

HF: To be honest, my audience was me! If something made me laugh or really resonated with me, I thought it would probably strike a chord with at least one other person.

VB: You talk a lot about your struggle with weight in high school and mention briefly your parents’ influence.  Did they ever pressure you to lose weight, or was it mostly your peer group in high school?

HF:My parents never pressured me to lose weight. My peers didn’t say anything directly either. It wasn’t that one day I decided “I have to be super pretty and skinny,” it was more that extremely negative thought patterns began to develop as a way to cope with all the bullshit of highschool- the pettiness and the sleep deprivation and the pressure to perform academically as well as socially. I channeled all of my frustration into this one seemingly simple solution: lose weight and be happy. But it turned out that the more I obsessed over numbers and calories and carbs, the less happy I was.

VB: Did you ever have doubts that you could pull off a novel? If so, how did you work past them?

HF: Every single day of writing this book I was pretty sure I would never be able to finish it. It was a hugely daunting process, and completely uncharted territory. So if you’re a writer out there and the idea of finishing a big project seems terrifyingly huge, then you’re right on track! Don’t lose hope, and try to only concentrate on just a small manageable piece at a time instead of considering the entire work.

Portrait of Ian Flemming, or Daniel Silva 1.0 beta, via ConnArtist on Flickr

In November, I’m going to be participating in NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where you write a 50,000 word novel in one month. The goal is to just write, without excuses, and to do it with people who are also doing it, making it easier.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it, but I’ve had a novel inside of me for as long as I’ve known how to write, however corny that sounds.  So, I’m limbering up by immitating some writers I’ve read recently. Come support me!

The book I read on the flight to and from Israel was, appropriately Daniel Silva’s book about Israeli Mossad spy Gabriel Allon.  He has several books about the iconic Mossad figure, the latest called Moscow Rules, named after the Soviet spy code that is all too active today, where Allon goes to Moscow and the rest of Europe to track down an infamous Russian oligarch arms dealer.  The plot is exciting enough, and at the end of the book, I surprisingly found out that it was extremely well-researched, but the dialogue is horrendous and the book is ridiculously cheesy, catering to an audience that doesn’t know humus from Hamas.

On our El Al flight to Tel Aviv, I read the cringe-inducing conversations between characters and fought off Chabad rabbis who constantly wanted to lay tefillin on Mr. B.  I thought, I could write a similar boiler-plate action story covering all points of the globe, rich in regional detail and contrived spy wisdom.

“Damnit,” thought Israeli agent Amit Barak as he sipped his half-skinny cappuccino on a brisk March morning in St. Marks Square, the pigeons circling him as ominously as that time he was in Gaza and Hamas terrorists were circling him ominously.  For a second, he felt PTSD from the pigeons. He added some Italian sugar cane to his cappuccino and opened his dossier as Avi, his backup, sat nearby and surreptitiously cleaned his Glock.  Avi always cleaned his Glock when he was nervous or awake.

Barak sipped his cappuccino as he read his dossier, frowning in concern.  The cappuccino was scalding the roof of his mouth.  He put it down.  The dossier made him frown, too.  It was on a terrorist in the Islamic Resistance movement rising up in the West Bank town of Qalqiliya.  Qalqilya was one of the only towns in the West Bank where Hamas had won over Fatah in the recent elections.  Much to Hamas’s misfortune, the nearby Russian-majority Israeli town of Ramat Liberman hadn’t taken kindly to this, and had started throwing rocks at Qalqiliya.  In response, the residents of Qalqilya had begged to have a separation barrier put up to defend themselves from the Russians.  Some of the more radical elements had started a fringe movement called Hamas Beta Release Version and were now infiltrating Israel, installing ugly screensavers of Hamas Betas blowing themselves up in every Internet cafe from Ashdod to Akko.

“This is not so tov,”  Barak thought to himself.  He glanced over at the pigeons again.  Just as he was going to ask Avi to shoot one of them, A Woman with legs as long as a Soviet food line and hair as dark as the electricity blackout in Lebanon after the 1982 invasion walked by.  She smelled like roses that had been cut just this morning and had all the life tortured out of them to provide a full, lush scent for this alluring signorina.   She barely looked at him through her gray market Gucci ripoff shades and sat down two tables away.  She took out a copy of Heeb Magazine and ordered a water with lemon after making sure she wouldn’t be charged for it.  That was his cue.

Barak nodded to Avi, Avi nodded back at him, and both of them moved two tables over.  “Donde estas your gun,” Barak asked the woman in impeccable Italian, and she replied, “In Dimona,” which meant it was strapped to her leg.  Any higher, say, around Hadera or so, and Barak would have been panicked.

“You know why you’re here?” Barak asked her, taking out a cigarette and smoking it, then immediately remembering he didn’t smoke and putting it out.  “Yes,” the woman replied, her voice as silky smooth as a Dove Promises Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bar after two hours in the car at 72 degrees Farenheit. “I will be infiltrating the Hamas Betas.”

Barak nodded.  “You have 72 hours to complete this mission, Tallit.  Remember that the Israeli people are depending on you. Even more than they depended on the invetion of mazgan.”  She nodded calmly.  Just as she was reaching into her knockoff Louis Vuitton, a dark-skinned man rushed by and grabbed it from her.

“Avi,” Barak yelled to Avi, who was texting his cousin Eyal in Holon to see if Beitar Yerushalayim had gotten anywhere in life, “who is that man?  Run after him!”

“I can’t, boss,” Avi shrugged as he looked up from his screen, “that man is Arab, and if I ran after him, it would clearly be racial profiling.”

“What do we do?” Talit cried out in shock.

To be continued (or not……)

No post today, but two quick things:

My first book review for Interfaithfamily.com is for Sana Krasikov’s One More Year.

And my first attempts at Uzbek cooking for neweurasia.net:

Full disclosure: Manuscript to review graciously provided to me by Dr. Tyler Cowen.

I’ve really been struggling with writing this review.  The reason?  The book has gotten tons of positive press from the likes of Amazon, Matthew Yglesias, and Ben Casnocha.   The author of the book, Dr. Tyler Cowen, a professor of economics around my neck of the woods, George Mason University, has a fascinating and successful website, Marginal Revolution, which you should be reading if you’re not already.  Dr. Cowen has a broad scope of knowledge in economics and fields beyond, and has been key to developing my education as an economist and critical consumer of news.  He was also nice enough to send me an editor’s proof of the book when I fawningly requested it, and has impeccable taste, being married to a Russian Jew.  However, I just cannot get behind this book at all.  I disliked it as much as I dislike the healthcare debate or bananas (true story.  I hate bananas.)

The main postulate of Create Your Own Economy is that we receive an extremely high volume of information from new media: our RSS feed, YouTube, iPods, etc.  This forces us to pick out exactly what we want to read and utilize, which is similar to what people on all ranges of the autistic spectrum do.  Its contention is that autistics organize their thoughts in a specific way, not all of which are necessarily bad.  In fact, I felt that the book somewhat glorifies autistics and their precise way of mental ordering as, at times, superior to those without elements of autism.

Additionally, Dr. Cowen in the book names several people who he believes may be autistic or at least have an autistic cognitive style.  These include Sherlock Holmes, Charles Darwin, Thomas Edison, Vincent van Gough, Jonathan Swift, and Bill Gates.   When examined under this microscope, it becomes evident that almost everyone has autism.  He believes that those who have this autistic-style type skill of arranging information, which he likens to arranging the furniture in a house, will be better off in the new world, hence the possibility of creating their own information hierarchy, and furthermore, your own economy.

The concept behind the book is interesting enough.  But I just could not get into it.  Because, for a book surprisingly about arranging information, it seemed devoid of such an organizational structure.  It’s true that it has chapters, but it seemed more like a conversation a professor would lead in a classroom that didn’t always necessarily have a point, rather than a thesis presented in nonfiction form.  Many times I got lost in the strings of logic and couldn’t pick myself back up.  It becomes especially ludicrous when Dr. Cowen seemingly exalts the skills of autism and makes it seem almost attractive.  I know this isn’t his intent and he treads carefully around what is a very sensitive topic, but the reader still comes away from the book feeling that those with autism somehow have superpowers.

Additionally, the book doesn’t come, in my opinion, to any big conclusions.  There are a lot of small eye-opening moments that make you pause and think, from a variety of sources.   An example:

For most people, a large part of your cultural identity and worldview is shared by what you are doing, and by the identity of your peers, between the critical ages of something like eight and twenty years old.  Those comparisons help us understand our educational system.

And,

The web makes it easier for us to focus our points of similarity with others.  For instance, there is the well-known phenomenon of the “Googletwin” or the “Googleganger,” patterned after the German word “Doppelganger,” which refers to your ghostly double.  A Googleganger is a person who shares your exact name and appears in your Google searches.  Of course whenever you google yourself, you learn about the doings of that namesake person as well.

What was also interesting to me was Dr. Cowen’s discussion of the iPod and the way iTunes has changed the way we view and consume music.  He writes,

The physical design of the iPod is compelling but the looks are only one part of the appeal.  The iPod and other MP3 payers are mostly about reorganizing the relationship between music and your mind.  Users organize music into playlists to suit their moods, the friends they are with, or the kind of trip they are taking…The “random shuffle” feature is prominent on the choice wheel, precisely because we want to be surprised by the music we hear, yet without giving up our role in controlling the final menu….Your iPod, by arranging your music collection in a new way and giving you power over its organization, actually makes that music sound better.

There are tons of tidbits like this throughout the book of information you’d never have thought about on your own.  However, the whole book reads like a list of favorited bookmarks rather than anything conclusive, and in the end, left me so frustrated, that I am ashamed to say I didn’t even finish it.

However, I will still frequently read Marginal Revolution, and of course, Tyler Cowen’s Ethnic Dining Guide.  Mmmm.  Tasty information.