Savyon Liebrecht's technically brilliant novel, A Man And A Woman And A Man is the vividly portrayed story showcasing a passionate affair that begins at a time when each of the lovers is facing the disability and death of a parent. Liebrecht depicts with insight and feeling all the complexities of a woman's relationship with her lover, her husband, her children, her mother, and her past where the shadow of the Holocaust is unescapable. A Man And A Woman And A Man is a true literary gem and highly rewarding reading -- a novel that will linger in the mind long after it is finished and set back upon the shelf.

Savyon Liebrecht was born in Germany, but immigrated to Israel (Tel Aviv) as a child. She is a feminist writer who portrays the lives in women in present-day Israel in its present conflict with Arab and Palestinian neighbors. She has written four short-story collections and a volume of three novellas. Recognized as a stunning writer, her novel A Man And A Woman And A Man has been published in Israel, Germany, and Italy.

Hamutal, daughter of Shifra, a nurse who never saw fit to give her daughter a nurturing type of love, is tending to her mother in a nursing home. Shifra now has Alzheimer's, and her increasingly bizarre behavior is tearing Hamutal to pieces and threatening her own relations with her husband and family:

"Arnon remained tight-lipped, which was unlike him, then asked, 'Am I to be deprived of this pleasure as well?' She didn't answer him with the girl there, just marveled at how easily he projected onto her mother all the anger he'd gathered elsewhere. In their bedroom she said later, 'Do I have to explain to you, too, that she's sick?' 'If she's so sick then it won't matter to her whether we come or not.'"

Stung by her family's rejection of her plight, Hamutal turns to a stranger named Saul Inlander, who is tending his dying father across the hall from her mother's room. The intensity of their affair terrifies and exhilarates both of them. Hamutal's family flees to kibbutz, freeing her from their demands. As her mother's dementia grows, she gives in to the affair, while memories and revelations of her past surge through her consciousness with help from her cousin Tzippie.

A Man And A Woman And A Man is intensely psychological, yet Savyon Liebrecht skillfully underplays the characters in order the allow the reader's imagination to take flight. Hamutal is, in essence, every woman, as she deals with "becoming an orphan" as her last parent prepares for death. It is the epitome of a middle-aged experience, interspersed with a grown up affair that is borne of childhood experiences. Hamutal looks at her life, finally finding the understanding of her mother that she never saw as her child. Exquisite reading.

Shelley Glodowski, Reviewer

These stories are the equivalent of being hit on the head with a literary sledgehammer. The points that they make (the Arabs as The Other, the Holocaust as having an impact on modern Israeli society, etc.) are pretty obvious to anyone who has any knowledge of Israel or Jewish history. They occasionally read like writing class exercises, actually.

That being said, the stories are a good window into Israeli society and show elements which you don't see on the news. For excellent Israeli literature, though, I'd have to recommend Yaakov Shabtai, Amos Oz or A.B. Yehoshua.

This is a wonderful book of short stories which contradicts the sterotypical picture of Israelis so often portrayed in the nightly news. It shows (mostly from the female point of view) the nuances of many types of Israelis, from religious to secular, from Ashkenazi to Sephardic, from Arab to Jew. In particular, it brings out the human side of each of its characters and demonstrates that feelings change from time to time and situation to situation. These are beautiful studies of human interaction.

I have four favorite stories. In "A Room on the Roof", a woman's husband goes to Texas, and she decides to build a new room on the second story of her home while he's gone. Her Jewish contractor leaves her alone with three Arab laborers during the construction process. She is not sure to how to react to their presence near and in her home. "The Road to Cedar City" tells of an Israeli couple (Hassida and Yehiel) and their son Yuval who are traveling in the United States when their rented car breaks down. The wife is unhappy when she learns that she must share a ride in a minivan with another young Israeli couple and their baby who are from Jerusalem. A talkative minivan driver further complicates matters by running his mouth during the entire trip. "Mother's Photo Album" is about a Dr. Joshua Hoshen who looks into his mother's medical record after she is hospitalized in a mental institution. He pieces together her life from what he reads in her record and uses a photograph to help resolve his anguish about what he discovers. A most notable story is "The Homesick Scientist" in which eldery Zerubavel wlcomes his nephew, a well-known Israeli scientist who lives in the United States, as he returns to visit Israel after 21 years. His nephew had frequently spent summers with Zerubavel after Zerubavel's own son Uri had been killed while on reserve duty. Zerubavel, although he had eagerly anticipated his nephew's visit, isn't sure what his nephew's motives were for returning after such a long absence.

Great, tight, vivid, exact writing about the Important Things (universal concerns, issues, and feelings) in the mood of a calm and astute observer/chronicler -- with soul. Perfect. Although these stories are primarily concerned with Israelis, I encouraged an East Indian friend to read "The Homesick Scientist"; it spoke to him so deeply of his own private experience that he immediately ordered the book (from Amazon, of course).