A Wall of Light by Edeet Ravel
In A Wall of Light, three narrators tell the story of the Vronsky family in Tel Aviv.
Noah, whose diary begins when he is 10 and ends after his army service, writes with humour about his sexual identity, his political ambivalence and his family relationships.
Sonya, a deaf professor of mathematics at Tel Aviv University, recounts a day in which she invites a stranger into her home and spends the rest of the day searching for him after he flees. Her journey takes her to the heart of Jerusalem, and to the heart of family secrets, including her own.
The third narrator is Anna, Sonya’s mother, whose letters to a lover she left behind in Russia describe Tel Aviv of the 1950s, and the attempt to put on a production of As You Like It with minimal resources and unruly audiences.
At the centre of the family the ever-constant Kostya, a doctor who works part-time so he can look after his family, tries to keep things in order, though not always successfully. His wife is murdered when she uncovers corruption in high places, Noah leaves for Berlin to pursue his art, Anna loses her memory, and Sonya finally decides to leave home and start her own family. But first she must confront her father, whose absence during her childhood still haunts her.
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