A Man and a Woman and a Man: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite reading
Review: Savyon Liebrecht was born in Germany, but immigrated to Israel (Tel Aviv) as a child. She is a feminist writer who portrays the lives in women in present-day Israel in its present conflict with Arab and Palestinian neighbors. She has written four short-story collections and a volume of three novellas. Recognized as a stunning writer, her novel A Man And A Woman And A Man has been published in Israel, Germany, and Italy.

Hamutal, daughter of Shifra, a nurse who never saw fit to give her daughter a nurturing type of love, is tending to her mother in a nursing home. Shifra now has Alzheimer's, and her increasingly bizarre behavior is tearing Hamutal to pieces and threatening her own relations with her husband and family:

"Arnon remained tight-lipped, which was unlike him, then asked, `Am I to be deprived of this pleasure as well?' She didn't answer him with the girl there, just marveled at how easily he projected onto her mother all the anger he'd gathered elsewhere. In their bedroom she said later, `Do I have to explain to you, too, that she's sick?' `If she's so sick then it won't matter to her whether we come or not.'"

Stung by her family's rejection of her plight, Hamutal turns to a stranger named Saul Inlander, who is tending his dying father across the hall from her mother's room. The intensity of their affair terrifies and exhilarates both of them. Hamutal's family flees to kibbutz, freeing her from their demands. As her mother's dementia grows, she gives in to the affair, while memories and revelations of her past surge through her consciousness with help from her cousin Tzippie.

A Man And A Woman And A Man is intensely psychological, yet Savyon Liebrecht skillfully underplays the characters in order the allow the reader's imagination to take flight. Hamutal is, in essence, every woman, as she deals with "becoming an orphan" as her last parent prepares for death. It is the epitome of a middle-aged experience, interspersed with a grown up affair that is borne of childhood experiences. Hamutal looks at her life, finally finding the understanding of her mother that she never saw as her child. Exquisite reading.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite reading
Review: Savyon Liebrecht was born in Germany, but immigrated to Israel (Tel Aviv) as a child. She is a feminist writer who portrays the lives in women in present-day Israel in its present conflict with Arab and Palestinian neighbors. She has written four short-story collections and a volume of three novellas. Recognized as a stunning writer, her novel A Man And A Woman And A Man has been published in Israel, Germany, and Italy.

Hamutal, daughter of Shifra, a nurse who never saw fit to give her daughter a nurturing type of love, is tending to her mother in a nursing home. Shifra now has Alzheimer's, and her increasingly bizarre behavior is tearing Hamutal to pieces and threatening her own relations with her husband and family:

"Arnon remained tight-lipped, which was unlike him, then asked, 'Am I to be deprived of this pleasure as well?' She didn't answer him with the girl there, just marveled at how easily he projected onto her mother all the anger he'd gathered elsewhere. In their bedroom she said later, 'Do I have to explain to you, too, that she's sick?' 'If she's so sick then it won't matter to her whether we come or not.'"

Stung by her family's rejection of her plight, Hamutal turns to a stranger named Saul Inlander, who is tending his dying father across the hall from her mother's room. The intensity of their affair terrifies and exhilarates both of them. Hamutal's family flees to kibbutz, freeing her from their demands. As her mother's dementia grows, she gives in to the affair, while memories and revelations of her past surge through her consciousness with help from her cousin Tzippie.

A Man And A Woman And A Man is intensely psychological, yet Savyon Liebrecht skillfully underplays the characters in order the allow the reader's imagination to take flight. Hamutal is, in essence, every woman, as she deals with "becoming an orphan" as her last parent prepares for death. It is the epitome of a middle-aged experience, interspersed with a grown up affair that is borne of childhood experiences. Hamutal looks at her life, finally finding the understanding of her mother that she never saw as her child. Exquisite reading.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer

Rating:
Summary: Showcases a passionate affair
Review: Savyon Liebrecht's technically brilliant novel, A Man And A Woman And A Man is the vividly portrayed story showcasing a passionate affair that begins at a time when each of the lovers is facing the disability and death of a parent. Liebrecht depicts with insight and feeling all the complexities of a woman's relationship with her lover, her husband, her children, her mother, and her past where the shadow of the Holocaust is unescapable. A Man And A Woman And A Man is a true literary gem and highly rewarding reading -- a novel that will linger in the mind long after it is finished and set back upon the shelf.