Human Parts (Verba Mundi Book)

This is a tale about contemporary Israel, well translated and an intriguing story of five very different characters. A cleaning woman realizes her dream of studying to be a make-up artist. A down-and-out divorcee bails herself out of debt. The sense of possibility and hope for people living in an impossible state of tension is captured accurately by Castel-Bloom.Meanwhile hailstones and terrorist bomb attacks plague their land. The prevailing sense of anxiety in Israeli society runs through this book from beginning to end. Even the title is evocative of that tortured environment. It's well worth reading and continues to stay in my mind long after finishing the last page.

Human Parts accomplishes two feats which are key to creating a novel that is both socially relevant and fleshed out in the arena of character development: Castel-Bloom is a master at showing us how the minutiae of everyday life can and will control people: the broken car, the bill at the Laundromat, the broken washing machine, getting the kids off to school. But Human Parts also circles ever wider, to illustrate the intrusion of the world of violence and conflict into our social existence. This is relevant for Israelis, and increasingly, for everyone in the world. You can be controlled by the lack of oil in your car just as much as the suicide bomber. Catel-Bloom deftly captures the unique predicament of our time in this novel of events and details.