CrocAttack!
Will be published approx. on 6. January 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
348 pages
978-0-00-732749-2 (ISBN)
Description
A darkly comic novel about the bizarre realities of life in Israel today.
'Why is everyone so paranoid in this country? Can't dark guys get on buses with suit bags any more?'
Eitan Enoch - 'Croc' to his friends - is taking his usual bus to work in Tel Aviv one morning when a fellow passenger starts to worry about the dark-skinned man with the suit-bag sitting up at the front.Thus begins a week of bloody bombings and bloodier reprisals, at the end of which Croc is transformed into an inadvertent national celebrity: 'CrocAttack - the man the terrorists couldn't kill!' Naturally, the Palestinian cell behind the attacks are less than happy about this reluctant symbol of Israeli defiance. They may not have been after him before, but they are now.
Meanwhile, in a hospital somewhere in Jerusalem, a young Palestinian suicide bomber lies in a coma, fighting for his life and trying to piece together how he got there - and just exactly what happened when he finally met the Croc...
Fast as a thriller, blackly funny and very contemporary, 'CrocAttack!' is the story of the lethal convergence of two very different lives, and a tragicomic portrait of the country exploding around them.
'Why is everyone so paranoid in this country? Can't dark guys get on buses with suit bags any more?'
Eitan Enoch - 'Croc' to his friends - is taking his usual bus to work in Tel Aviv one morning when a fellow passenger starts to worry about the dark-skinned man with the suit-bag sitting up at the front.Thus begins a week of bloody bombings and bloodier reprisals, at the end of which Croc is transformed into an inadvertent national celebrity: 'CrocAttack - the man the terrorists couldn't kill!' Naturally, the Palestinian cell behind the attacks are less than happy about this reluctant symbol of Israeli defiance. They may not have been after him before, but they are now.
Meanwhile, in a hospital somewhere in Jerusalem, a young Palestinian suicide bomber lies in a coma, fighting for his life and trying to piece together how he got there - and just exactly what happened when he finally met the Croc...
Fast as a thriller, blackly funny and very contemporary, 'CrocAttack!' is the story of the lethal convergence of two very different lives, and a tragicomic portrait of the country exploding around them.
Reviews / Votes
'Unflinching and compassionate.' David Mitchell'Excellent: smart, funny and authentic.' Joe Dunthorne
'Assaf Gavron has done the impossible: written a darkly funny novel about suicide bombing. In a dazzling display of empathy, Gavron creates two equally compelling narrators, the bomber and his victim. This is a virtuoso work; a pitch-perfect rendering of real Israeli life in all its chaos, energy, humour and terror. I couldn't put it down.' Geraldine Brooks
'[An] original and powerful writer.... His clear and honest writing blasts right through the cliches and the politically correct surface to touch the chaotic and ambiguous core of the Israeli identity.' Etgar Keret
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers
Product notice
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
240 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-00-732749-2 (9780007327492)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Assaf Gavron is a writer and translator. He grew up in Jerusalem, studied in London and Vancouver, and now lives in Tel Aviv. In Israel he has published four novels, a short story collection, and a collection of falafel reviews.