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THE WANTING

Michael Lavigne

This powerful novel about an Israeli father and his daughter brings to life a rich canvas of events and unexpected change in the aftermath of a suicide bombing. THE WANTING is a poignant study of the costs of extremism, but is most satisfying as a story of characters enmeshed in their imperfect love for one another, and for the heartbreakingly complex world in which that love is wrought.

When celebrated architect Roman Guttman is caught up in a Jerusalem bus bombing, his life is ripped apart. Tormented by unanswered questions, he embarks on an ill-advised trip into the desert in search of the bomber’s parents. Behind him he leaves his thirteen-year-old daughter Anyusha, who must find her own perilous method of coping with the fissures that have opened up in her world. Hovering above it all is the startlingly alive witnessing of Amir, the young Palestinian who detonated the bomb and is now damned to observe the havoc he has wrought from a shaky beyond. With this trio of distinctive voices, and enriched by flashbacks to the sad tale of Anyusha’s mother, a Russian refusnik who died for her beliefs, The Wanting is a galvanizing study of the costs of extremism and the complex lives and loves which lie in its shadow. MICHAEL LAVIGNE was educated at Millersville State College and the University of Chicago, where he did graduate work on the Committee on Social Thought. His award-winning first novel, "Not Me" was published abroad by Piemme in Italy, Rocco in Brazil and Meulenhoff in Holland. He has worked extensively in advertising, for which he has won numerous awards. He lived in the Soviet Union for three years and now lives in San Francisco with his wife. Tackling a very sensitive subject with a great deal of humanity, Michael Lavigne has crafted a haunting, thought-provoking novel that stays with you long past its final pages. I look forward to hearing what you think.

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Book Published 2013-02-01 by Schocken Books

Comments

Lavigne’s heartfelt examination offers what reportage never could: an intensely intimate and human depiction of the forces that unite and powerfully divide this region and its people.

Lavigne writes like an angel. And like a devil. Indeed, he writes so well that it isn’t always possible to tell which is which. His ability to give wild imaginings a concrete immediacy, a human warmth and plausibility, is the rarest of writerly gifts.

In this exquisite novel of longing and loss, Lavigne has woven multiple stories of intersecting lives and conflicting desires. From the snowy streets of communist Moscow to the scorching heat of a Palestinian-controlled desert, we travel with characters at once ruined and resilient, some idealistic, others world-weary—all pursuing that most essential but elusive want: a place to call home. A beautiful meditation on love, and on all the ways in which stories are remembered and told.