RETURNING LOST LOVES

One thinks of Grand Hotel, or perhaps Terence Rattigan’s popular play Separate Tables, while reading this entertaining Israeli novel, which joins in English translation its acclaimed author’s earlier Musical Moment and The Way to the Cats. The story’s set in and near a Tel Aviv apartment complex, whose various inhabitants—including a shy virgin warily contemplating adultery, a wrathful conservative religious zealot, and a family shamed when its soldier son goes AWOL from the Israeli army, among others—are gradually shown to be “connected” in ways that illuminate both their individual priorities and their communal identity. Beautifully structured, and an eye-opening composite portrayal of a culture whose complexities we barely comprehend.