Yishai Sarid's "Minatzahat" – killing with no fear
"The Memory Monster" was a success for Israeli author Yishai Sarid. His latest book hasn't been published in English yet, but given his reach among Anglophone readers, it won't be long before there's a publishing deal for this controversial new novel. Sarah Judith Hofmann read the book
There is a scene in this novel that could hardly be more Israeli. Mendi, an aged artist, sits in a
moshav – a kind of kibbutz – and peels oranges that he has picked himself. It's quiet in the moshav; only Abigail, his friend and psychotherapist, is there. It's actually quite a romantic picture. But the two of them don't just chat aimlessly in the orchard. No, the artist tells of the people he once killed; and who now come to him in his dreams to take revenge on him. He reports – orange slice by orange slice – "how he killed, with the knife, by strangling and with the pistol, always silently at arm's length."