EDEN

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HEDAYA, Yael Hedaya

Fiction, 2005

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The characters in this novel include Dafna and Eli, who have undergone seven years of fertility treatments without success. Dafna works for a New Left group and Eli is an attorney with” pseudo-yuppie” tendencies, as his wife puts it. There is also Mark and Alona, a couple who separated but are still friends and have two children; the elderly Nehama, Alona’s mother and Reuven, the 60-something neighbor who works as the regional council, fantasizes about his neighbor Alona and hates his Arab assistant Ali. All of them live in the moshav Eden, which serves as a microcosm of Israeli society and is home to both long-time residents and the nouveau riche. EDEN, which the reviewers are comparing to Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections.

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Rights Sold to:

Holland: Meulenhoff (reverted); Israel: Am Oved; Switzerland: Diogenes; USA: Picador

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Reviews:

“A graceful exploration of loneliness, and the worm that gnaws at the heart of all things.” – Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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“Reads like a psychologically astute Israeli version of American Beauty.” – New York Magazine

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“[An] accomplished, acutely observed novel from the former head writer of the original Israeli series that HBO's “In Treatment” was based on…[T]he novel succeeds in avoiding clichés, creating universal characters existing in an intimately connected social milieu.” – Publishers Weekly

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“Hedaya touches the most sensitive points of Israeliness. She writes about the disintegration of society, and about its loss of humanity on both the collective level and on the level of personal relationships.”  – Ha’aretz

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“Hedaya does an excellent job of presenting the struggles, joys, and intimate moments of middle age…An austere, beautifully crafted, and many-voiced novel.” – Julie Hunt, Booklist

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