March 2nd
7pm
Based on actual events, a gripping novel of sex, love, history and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandatory Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A Palestine Affair
"The story of what is arguably Israel’s foundational murder trial—a tale of multiple identities and loyalties." —Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus
It’s 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler’s Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed.
While preparing for the trial, Ivor, an innocent to the politics of the case, falls into bed and deeply in love with Tsiona, a free-spirited artist who happened to sketch the accused men in a Jerusalem café on the night of the murder and may be a key witness. As Ivor learns the hard way about the violence simmering just beneath the surface of British colonial rule, Jonathan Wilson dazzles with his mastery of the sun-drenched landscape and the subtleties of the warring agendas among the Jews, Arabs, and British.
And as he travels between the crime scene in Tel Aviv and the mazelike streets of Jerusalem, between the mounting mysteries surrounding this notorious case and clandestine lovemaking in Tsiona’s studio, Ivor must discover where his heart lies: whether he cares more for the law or the truth, whether he is more an Englishman or a Jew, and where and with whom he truly belongs.
We recommend that guests wear masks on the night.
Jonathan Wilson is the author of eight previous books, including the novels The Hiding Room (a finalist for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize) and A Palestine Affair (a New York Times Notable Book and National Jewish Book Award finalist); two short story collections, Schoom and An Ambulance Is on the Way; and the soccer memoir Kick and Run. He lives in Newton, Massachusetts.
Molly Antopol is the author of The UnAmericans, which was nominated for the National Book Award and won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, the Berlin Prize, the French-American Prize, the Ribalow Prize and a California Book Award Silver Medal. She currently teaches at Stanford University and is finishing up a novel, which will be published by Norton.
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