Talking to the Enemy: Stories

“Mandelman’s stories veer from heartbreaking to hilarious, and all of them depict Israel’s desperate fragility and the horrific lengths to which its citizens must go to survive.”—New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

“[Mandelman] is a cruder writer than Nathan Englander or David Bezmozgis or Todd Hasak-Lowy….But Mandelman ‘s material is richer, and he tells it with more urgency.”—New York Magazine

“Complicates the underside of Israeli culture, teasing out the roots of violence and prejudice in this alternately dark and humorous collection . . . With these agile, vernacular stories, Mandelman takes a clear-sighted yet empathetic view of a fraught nation.”—Publishers Weekly

A New York Times Editor’s Choice, winner of the I.J. Siegal Award for fiction, and featuring Best American Short Stories winners, Talking to the Enemy is an unforgettable collection of stories that “matters matters because it refuses to be easy” —Jerusalem Post.

Born in Israel in 1947, Avner Mandelman served in the Israeli Air Force during the Six Day War and has for four decades split his time between Paris, California, and Canada. Mandelman’s stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories (1995), The Journey Prize Stories (Canada, 2003), and the Pushcart Prize XX (1996).

Provocative and tightly woven stories of life in a war zone.

Publishers Weekly

Mandelman, an Israeli living in Toronto, complicates the underside of Israeli culture, teasing out the roots of violence and prejudice in this alternately dark and humorous collection, which won the Jewish Book Award when first published in Canada. Mickey, a Mossad agent and son of Holocaust survivors, narrates several pieces spanning his lifetime, including "Terror," in which he betrays his five-year-old brother and suffers a beating from his father, learning the hard way that "family comes first," a lesson that morphs into his reigning ideology: "Is it good for my people?" "Pity" details the disastrous results-and the chink in Mickey's hardened, vengeful bluster-when he and his colleagues botch a two-week stake-out of a Nazi war criminal in Paris. In "Black," the young narrator recalls his Ashkenazi family's unlovely rejection of his cousin's dark-skinned Moroccan bride. Mandelman strikes a lighter note with the hilariously convoluted "Mish-Mash," about Uncle Nathan Berkovitch's polygamous household-his concubine, his two wives and one of their lovers-and their conflict over a winning lottery ticket. With these agile, vernacular stories, Mandelman takes a clear-sighted yet empathetic view of a fraught nation. (July) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Avner Mandelman was born in Israel in 1947. From 1965 to 1968, including the Six Day War, he served in the Israeli air force. He has spent the last four decades living in Paris, California, and Canada. His stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize.