
The Parting Gift
Evan Fallenberg(Author)
Other Press LLC
Published on 4. September 2018
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-59051-943-1 (ISBN)
Description
"An unabashed tale that does not pull punches and looks at love's underside…This breathless story should only be read in one sitting. It hits hard and never lets up. Terse, brusque, etched on one's inner thigh with an old serrated knife." -André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name
This erotic tale of jealousy, obsession, and revenge is suffused with the rich flavors and intoxicating scents of Israel's Mediterranean coast.
An unnamed narrator writes a letter to an old college friend, Adam, with whom he has been staying since his abrupt return to the States from Israel. Now that the narrator is moving on to a new location, he finally reveals the events that led him to Adam's door, set in motion by a chance encounter with Uzi, a spice merchant whose wares had developed a cult following.
From his first meeting with Uzi, the narrator is overwhelmed by an animal attraction that will lead him to derail his life, withdraw from friends and extend his stay in a small town north of Tel Aviv. As he becomes increasingly entangled in Uzi's life-and by extension the lives of Uzi's ex-wife and children-his passion turns sinister, ultimately threatening all around him.
Written in a circuitous style that keeps you guessing until the end, The Parting Gift is a page-turner and a shrewd exploration of the roles men assume, or are forced to assume, as lovers, as fathers, as Israelis, as Palestinians.
This erotic tale of jealousy, obsession, and revenge is suffused with the rich flavors and intoxicating scents of Israel's Mediterranean coast.
An unnamed narrator writes a letter to an old college friend, Adam, with whom he has been staying since his abrupt return to the States from Israel. Now that the narrator is moving on to a new location, he finally reveals the events that led him to Adam's door, set in motion by a chance encounter with Uzi, a spice merchant whose wares had developed a cult following.
From his first meeting with Uzi, the narrator is overwhelmed by an animal attraction that will lead him to derail his life, withdraw from friends and extend his stay in a small town north of Tel Aviv. As he becomes increasingly entangled in Uzi's life-and by extension the lives of Uzi's ex-wife and children-his passion turns sinister, ultimately threatening all around him.
Written in a circuitous style that keeps you guessing until the end, The Parting Gift is a page-turner and a shrewd exploration of the roles men assume, or are forced to assume, as lovers, as fathers, as Israelis, as Palestinians.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
387 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-59051-943-1 (9781590519431)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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Person
Evan Fallenberg is the author of three novels and a translator of Hebrew books, plays and films. His work has won or been short-listed for numerous awards, including the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Stonewall Award for Literature, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the PEN Translation Prize. He teaches at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv and is faculty co-director of the Vermont College of Fine Arts International MFA in Creative Writing & Literary Translation. Fallenberg is the recipient of residency fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell Colony, Banff Centre for the Arts, Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt and Sun Yat-sen University, and is the founder of Arabesque: An Arts and Residency Center in Old Akko, Israel.