Falling out of time
(Book)

Translation of: Nofel mi-ḥuts la-zeman.

In this book, the Israeli author has created a genre-defying drama, part play, part prose, pure poetry, to tell the story of bereaved parents setting out to reach their lost children. It begins in a small village in Israel, where a man announces to his wife that he is leaving, embarking on a journey in to an undefinded place where he hopes to find and to speak to their dead son. The man, called simply Walking Man, paces in ever-widening circles around the town. One after another, all manner of townsfolk fall into step with him (the Net-Mender, the Midwife, the Elderly Math Teacher, even the Duke), each enduring his or her own loss. The walkers raise questions of grief and bereavement: Can death be overcome by an intensity of speech or memory? Is it possible, even for a fleeting moment, to call to the dead and free them from their death? The answer to such questions is a hymn to these characters, who ultimately find solace and hope in their communal act of breaching death's hermetic separateness.

Announcing I have to go, a grief-stricken Israeli villager takes leave of his bewildered wife, embarking on a journey to there -- an impossibly undefined place where he hopes to find and to speak with his dead son. As he sets out walking, in ever-widening circles around his village, the Walking Man becomes a Pied Piper of Bereavement.