By Assaf Gavron (Trans: Steven Cohen)
Oneworld, £16.99
Born in 1968, Assaf Gavron is part of the same generation of Israeli writers as Etgar Keret and Eshkol Nevo. All three were born between the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. The Hilltop is Gavron's fifth novel and has received considerable acclaim in Israel.
It is a big, ambitious, state-of-nation novel, which tries to combine the stories of a group of settlers on the West Bank, with the fault-lines in modern-day Israel. Gavron presents the settlers as ordinary people, preoccupied with their daily lives, trying to deal with the problems of generators breaking down, family life, and a government which sees them only as a problem.
Only two, Josh from Brooklyn and crazy Neta Hirchson, conform to the media stereotypes. Both, however, are over-the-top, one-dimensional characters.
The characters who stand out are two brothers, Roni and Gabi. Gabi is deeply religious and a sad loner. His brother Roni suddenly descends from America, his life in free-fall. The book alternates between the past, the back story of the brothers, and the present.
Will the government succeed in closing down the settlement, which is a constant source of trouble and worry for the defence minister and the local military garrison? Will the brothers come to terms with their problems and find new lives for themselves?
The Hilltop is full of powerful moments of high drama, many involving terrible acts of violence. Marriages and relationships come apart. Characters try and find forgiveness. Mysteries from the past are explained.
"In any normal country," says the defence minister, "the outpost would have been dismantled and they [the settlers] would have been thrown in jail." It is clear that Israel, despite the decent intentions of many of the characters in the novel, is not a "normal country".
There are two main problems with the novel. First, literary. It is a huge book and often a slow read. The prose rarely glitters or excites. Secondly, and perhaps more worrying, political. In his attempt to normalise the settlers and the nearby Palestinians, many (and not just those on the left) will feel that everything that is disturbing about the settlements has simply been left out.
Gavron's settlers are just too decent, too well-meaning. Gavron does not confront the problems they pose for peace with the Palestinians - who remain a worrying absence. Even when they are portrayed sympathetically, they are never given a proper voice. We are a long way from the agonising problems of this past summer.
You don't have to be a Guardian reader or a fan of Jon Snow to find The Hilltop deeply frustrating. Similarly, you don't have to be particularly highbrow to find the book unsatisfactory as a work of literature.
David Grossman or Amos Oz it isn't.
