Martyrs' Crossing (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

Rating:
Summary: Only connect
Review: Better reporters than Amy Wilentz have found themselves caught short by the transition from journalism to fiction (for example Jimmy Breslin, whose novels always leave me hungry for his column). But im Martyr's Crossing Amy Wilentz has vaulted across in her very first attempt. The story takes an incident that could be from today's headlines (and, tragically, tomorrow's headlines as well): the death of a child in Israel. In this case, the child is killed by asthma and the lack of proper medical treatment, not by a bullet. Also in this case the child is Palestinian. But part of the triumph of this book is the way Wilentz's characters--Israelis and Palestinians--are three dimensional human beings, not cardboard caricatures of good and evil.

There are terrorists here, and terror, and the cold political calculations of men determined to hold on to power, willing to exploit any tragedy if it serves their purposes. But Wilentz's humane and gripping narrative is a million miles from the wooden gestures of the politcal thriller. The center of her attention, and ours, is the boy's mother, Marina, American born and educated, but drawn back to the Palestine described by her father, a Harvard professor. Wilentz's description of the tensions and passions between father and daughter is superb, as is her portrayal of the almost unendurable sorrow of a mother powerless to keep her child alive. But what makes the novel even more exceptional is Wilentz's equally compelling portrayal of the Israeli who first keeps Marina from passing his checkpoint (and getting her son to the hospital) then valiantly, but vainly, attempts to help.

Wilentz offers no easy answers. Instead, she allows both sides the full weight of their tragic collision. Beautifully written, and clearly informed by careful reporting, this is a triumphant fictional debut.

Rating:
Summary: Much thought, little action
Review: I quit reading this book after a hundred or so pages. It's not an awful bit of prose. In fact, I think the author does characterization and setting very well. But there is soooooo little action in it! I didn't expect or want something like a Tom Clancy novel (his writing is way too shallow for me). But I expect things to happen in a novel. Instead, we have one significant event that takes place at the beginning of "Martyr's Crossing" followed by endless introspection. If it was a movie, I think I would have fallen asleep before it was half over.

Rating:
Summary: Superior first novel
Review: I've long admired Amy Wilentz's reporting in "The New Yorker," and I'm happy to be able to recommend her first work of fiction, which is as incisive and clear-eyed as her journalism.

All conflicts between nations are suffused with moral ambiguity (if only because of the vagueness of the very concept of "nation"), and the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation evokes more than its fair share of bewilderment, irony, and tragedy. The novel (as opposed to reportage) is the superior medium for exploring these issues -- for, let's face it, grabbing you by the throat -- and Ms. Wilentz makes the most of it, with precise characterizations, piercing insight into moral issues, and an extraordinarily vivid sense of time and place.

Rating:
Summary: Tedious and Overhyped
Review: In many ways, this book is a disaster. The characters, with the exception of the Israeli soldier, are one-dimensional and worse: predictable. The situation doesn't feel unique but cliched, even if accurate, which I don't doubt. You see, the author did not do her homework when it comes to creating suspense, creating depth or creating an atmospheric world we readers can enter and inhabit. I found the writing here stilted and the plot, tedious. And to think she had the greatest story in the world sitting in her lap! I cannot imagine why others call this book great. That is just plain false advertising, or as they say in the Mideast, giving "greatness" to the 'wrong address.' Ms. Wilentz has paid her dues in her many essays and other work. That does not excuse the disastrous superficiality one finds here. I'm warning other readers, as one woman who reads at least book a day: this doesn't cut it--not as fiction, not as decent writing. Choppy and dull; boring,a failure--that's my educated take on this novel. The cover, with its bleakness and caricature is the best affirmation of what I say here, of what follows inside.

Rating:
Summary: I love this book
Review: Martyr's Crossing is a beautifully written and moving story with vivid characters. It has a modern hero in the conflicted young Israeli lieutenant who tries to help a Palestinian woman at a border checkpoint. It has a beautiful young mother whose bravery is heartbreaking. The book has brains and heart and elements of the thriller. It is literary. "He felt dizzy with the past, as if it were suddenly physical," Wilentz writes of a Palestinian man, visiting his Jerusalem home after 50 years away. Reading this book, the past does seem physical, and so does the wrenching present. This book brims with tastes and smells, sounds and texture, so that the place and its people come alive. One thing that strikes me as extraordinary about the book is how political it is without being partisan or overbearing. A good read.

Rating:
Summary: Only connect
Review: On the jacket a comment is made that the Author takes what are normally, "journalistic subjects, and shows their internal life". This is a goal difficult to achieve however noble, with a subject that has been presented so vividly and visually for decades. I enjoyed the book but I did not feel this particular point was reached, and again that may have been due to the storyline unfolding a tale that while terrible is nauseatingly familiar. The incident in this book is tragic and graphic, and as pathetic as it may be the images are as familiar in Oklahoma as they are in this Checkpoint locale. I am not suggesting they are a daily occurrence here as they are elsewhere, just that people's attitudes toward those they view as different are the norm not the exception. Those same people are willing to harm other groups with the same ease with which they hate.

The violence that consumes those people and the lands they dispute are in a continuous loop of violence like other perpetual fights elsewhere in the world. The more disturbing part of this story is the degree to which the violence is manipulated, the citizens on either side used and their feelings motivated/created through propaganda and truths that are omitted. The Author also took a gutsy and praiseworthy stance of the hypocrisy of religion, the tool it has become, and in some cases how irrelevant it has made itself. In one part of the book she focuses on religious proclamations by the highest of their religion and shows them for what they are, totally meaningless and bereft of any value. As a counterpoint to the story she is relating I thought that worked very well.

Ms. Amy Wilnetz has taken both sides to task in, "Martyrs' Crossing". And while it would be foolish to expect this book will change what we see on CNN routinely, optimists can hope that each time the story is told, the effort made, some progress will be gained as well.

Rating:
Summary: Much thought, little action
Review: What novel could be more timely and inviting than an intelligent, literate, readable, suspenseful, emotionally compelling, and thoughtful story treating the question: What--among the varied human experiences of family, friendship, history, culture, religion, tradition, heritage, territory, nationhood, ideals, values, competing loyalties, and the notion of truth itself--is worth living for, working for--and especially--killing and/or dying for?

To be sure, Wilentz never comes right out and asks these questions--instead, her beautifully plotted story subtly raises, explores, and offers insight into all of them, by offering a wide range of intelligent characters from varying ages, backgrounds, and experiences, who are arriving at a multiplexity of conclusions and viewpoints while facing intricately intertwined human dilemmas.

I know this book will provoke animated and thoughtful discussion in my book club.

I was first attracted to the book (when browsing in the "New Book Section" of our library) by Wilentz's beautiful writing style, as well as her very evident intellectual depth. She has clearly spent much time living in and reporting on Israel/The West Bank, but more importantly, she has thought long and respectfully about disparate approaches to politics, patriotism, and violence.

This is not a heavy, depressing book, it's a love story--in fact a compilation of moving and convincing love stories about the varieties of passionate human relationships. It's gripping--at times seeming to move inexorably toward a Greekly tragic conclusion (although I found the end surprisingly heartening.) I felt I understood each character's struggle to find integrity and meaning; Wilentz works hard to give each viewpoint a human face and a convincing history and testimony.

Wilentz has a talent for character and for realistic thoughts/dialogue. She makes all her characters appealing and believable (sometimes grotesquely so), all worthy of respect and understanding, in their individual struggles to make sense of the most difficult human challenges.

Although I'm fascinated with the political and spiritual questions Wilentz raises, and although I've read urgently in the areas of war, peace, politics, religion and philosophy, I have never been to Israel and know no Palestinians. I felt that Wilentz's pen was painfully sharp, cynical, and for the most part balanced, when aimed at the hypocrisies of both "sides," and also strongly empathetic and sympathetic, when focused on the pain and grievances of both sides.

But ultimately, this is not a book about Jews and Palestinians. It's a book about home, and integrity, and about the personal qualities, values, and actions that make a person deserve to call a building and a child and a spouse and a friend and a city and a land, "his/her own."

And although Wilentz never directly mentions the word "nationalism," I believe this is also a book about whether the concept of nationalism is ultimately helpful or hurtful to human life.

I couldn't put this book down. I loved the story, the style, the characters, the author, and learned a great deal about important issues I care deeply about. This is great writing from a great writer. I hope someday to read many more of her books....

Rating:
Summary: Read Amira Hass Instead!
Review: Wonderful Masterpiece! I truly enjoyed reading Martyrs' Crossing. For having read Rainy Season, I know that Wilentz writes beautifully and that out of a few details she can write fascinating stories ; but in Martyrs' Crossing she surpassed herself. Starting with what some may consider a minor incident, the death of a sick child, she describes the whole political conflict between Israel and Palestine with pathos. She gives her own philosophy of life: no clear cut division between good, bad and evil; all is confusion, ambivalence and ambiguity, nothing is simple. Love, hatred, religious belief, superstition, war, anger, joy, atheistic thought, hardship of migration, egocentrism, thirst for power, sex; Wilentz is not willing to leave out the slightest feeling a human being might have. Has Wilentz become fatalist and superstitious when living in Jerusalem? No, on the contrary, she has strenghened her freedom of thought. She has remained the « libre-penseur » whose approach I like. It is no wonder that she managed to portray Israeli Soldier Ari Doron as the hero of her fascinating book ! I would encourage all my friends to read Martyrs' Crossing. They will like it.

Rénald Clérismé