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A Pigeon and a Boy
by Meir Shalev
ISBN: 9780805242515
Schocken Books
$25.00 Hardcover
October 2007
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What's It About? |
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Tour guide Yair Mendelson unravels a wondrous story of love that evolves between two handlers of homing pigeons that blossoms in the early 40's and lasts until Israel's War of Independence.
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Who's Talking About It? |
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"[A] stunning tale... This gem of a story about the power of love, which won Israel's Brenner Prize, brims with luminous originality."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Magical realism works beautifully in this powerfully suffused novel of love, loss, and the need for home."--Library Journal
"Meir Shalev, the Woody Allen of the desert, is an Israeli author one absolutely has to read!"--Elle magazine
"Shalev creates a world that has the richness of invention and obsessiveness of dreams. He delivers both startling imagery and passionate, original characters whose destinies we follow through love, loss, laughter, and death."--The New York Times Book Review
"It is as though the Song of Solomon had been rewritten by Gabriel Garcia Marquez... You get a master class in the storyteller's art."--The Daily Telegraph
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Why Should I Read It? |
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“I have read Israeli novelist Meir Shalev's work before, and I was captivated by his playful, rich style. But it wasn't until now that I felt we had just the right book to introduce him again in the U.S. market. This gorgeous double love story is piercing and romantic, an intertwining of the past and present that explores how a single act of passion can shape multiple lives. No description can do justice to the magnificent writing, the many layers and explosions of color and feeling and nuances of character all on display in Shalev's work.”--Deb Garrison, Senior Editor, Schocken Books
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From A Pigeon and a Boy: |
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This Hebrew he had unleashed, without prior warning, was good--in spite of his accent--but his use of the term homing pigeon in English sounded more pleasant and proper than its Hebrew equivalent, even if the bird in question did belong to the Palmach.
"How could you be sure?"
"A pigeon handler was assigned to us, a pigeon expert with a little dovecote--that's what it was called--on his back. Maybe he managed to dispatch the bird before he was killed, or maybe the dovecote busted and the bird flew away."
"He was killed? How?"
"How? There was no lack of how to get killed here--all you had to do was choose: by a bullet or shrapnel, in the head or the stomach or that major artery in your thigh. Sometimes it was right away and sometimes it was real slow, a few hours after you got hit."
His yellow eyes pierced me. "Amazing, isn't it?" he said, chuckling. "We went to battle with homing pigeons, like in ancient Greece."
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