My Michael: A Novel

“Thoughtful, self-assured and highly sophisticated, full of the most skillful modulations of tone and texture. A modern Israeli Madame Bovary.” —The 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, pragmatic, but unremarkable geology professor named Michael. Wedded too young, emotionally unprepared for motherhood, and forced to abandon her university studies, Hannah grows bored, frustrated, and increasingly removed from the banal certainty of her immediate world. As years pass, and Michael goes off to war, Hannah’s heady fantasy life encroaches upon reality. Hannah grows ever more estranged from her husband, as the marriage begins to disintegrate. “A flickering, multi-toned Israeli novel which grapples with time’s incursions, love’s deceptions, and the diminishment of desire” (Kirkus Reviews), My Michael is at once a haunting love story and a rich, reflective portrait of a place and time that “takes the reader into the fevered mind of a young woman” (The Guardian).

© 2005 Mariner Books (Ebook): 9780547542669

Translators: Nicholas de Lange

Release date

Ebook: 1 November 2005