My Michael [Paperback]

"Thoughtful, self-assured and highly sophisticated, full of the most skillful modulations of tone and texture. A modern Israeli Madame Bovary.”—New York Times Book Review

Set in 1950s Jerusalem, My Michael is the story of a remote and intense woman named Hannah Gonen and her marriage to a decent but unremarkable man named Michael. As the years pass and Hannah’s tempestuous fantasy life encroaches upon reality, she feels increasingly estranged from him and the marriage gradually disintegrates. Gorgeously written, profoundly moving, this extraordinary novel is at once a haunting love story, and a rich reflective portrait of a place.

"A dazzling, very beautiful, splendidly conceived and composed book." —New York Review of Books

PRAISE FORMY MICHAEL

Slow, thoughtful, self-assured and highly sophisticated, full of the most skillful modulations of tone and texture. A modern IsraeliMadame Bovary. . . distinguished by its warmth, its lyricism and remarkable technical control. --The New York Times

A dazzling, very beautiful, splendidly conceived and composed book. --The New York Review of Books

I AM WRITING this because people I loved have died. I am writing this because when I was young I was full of the power of loving, and now that power of loving is dying. I do not want to die.

I am thirty years of age and a married woman. My husband is Dr. Michael Gonen, a geologist, a good-natured man. I loved him. We met in Terra Sancta College ten years ago. I was a first-year student at the Hebrew University, in the days when lectures were still given in Terra Sancta College.

This is how we met:

One winter's day at nine o'clock in the morning I slipped coming downstairs. A young stranger caught me by the elbow. His hand was strong and full of restraint. I saw short fingers with flat nails. Pale fingers with soft blalÌ