Scream Queens of the Dead Sea

Rating:
Summary: Truly Delicious.
Review: Form follows function as Gilad Elbom dares you to distinguish truth from fiction in this epic, quazi-autobiographical, Gen X, narrative, set in the Isreal, a land rife with contradiction. Loaded with deflection and diversion, it's more about what isn't said than said, though what that means is left to the reader to figure out. Nevertheless, Elbom brings frustration to new and hilarious heights as we follow along with this Israeli everyman, through an Odyssean journey reeking of raw sexuality, heavy metal, and red tape. A must read!

Rating:
Summary: Sonnets to a porn star are just the tip of the iceberg
Review: Gilad's stream of consciousness pulls you in. This book is fascinating on many levels, from the first hand account of modern day Israel as seen through the eyes of a candid and cynical young writer to the hard core sex scenes. The collection of unlikely characters will keep you guessing as to who is sane and who is not. In this must read novel you will meet an intelligent HAMAS activist, a man who spent his whole life sleeping for a living, a silent ethiopian girl and many more chararcters. All this together with the references to grammer and heavy metal will keep you wanting more.

Rating:
Summary: Can one remain sane in the midst of chaotic violence?
Review: I could not put this book down till I finished it.
If you are interested in the way sane young Israelis
think today, in their chaotic home country, let this
book guide you through a fair measure of black
humor, and cynisizm, that are part of everyday life
in Israel today. The portrayal of the mad patients at
the asylum, in which the protagonist serves as an
assistant nurse, is both touching and funny. For those
that are interested, the book also includes a fair
amount of linguistic analysis, and many allusions to
heavy metal music (which surely will attract any heavy
metal fan). Although I am neither a linguistic
expert nor a heavy metal fan (my soul knowledge in this
area dates to my long ago high school days when a friend
thought I lacked expertise in this musical genre), the
digressions into these subjects did not reduce my pleasure
while reading the book. On the contrary, I think they added
to it. The sex scenes in the book maybe a bit hard to take,
however, they are well justified. They emphsize the violence
that is constantly tolerated in Israel these days. If you
cannot stomach it, just skip these scenes, since
the rest of the book is well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Scream Queens of the Dead Sea
Review: I truly enjoyed this book. It is whitty and fast paced. The characters are interesting and believable. I would recommend this book to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: "The monkey in the eyes of its mother--a gazelle."
Review: In Gilad Elbom's witty, metafictional novel of life in Jerusalem, an iconoclastic "fictional" speaker named Gilad is writing a novel which parallels events in the life of the book's real author Gilad Elbom. The main character, a young man who studied languages and linguistics at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has taken a job as an assistant nurse in a mental hospital, and as he speaks to us in his lively and sometimes flippant style, the reader observes his personal relationships, the lives and behavior of the inmates in the asylum where he works, the uncertainties of daily life of Jerusalem, and the overriding question of what constitutes sanity in modern-day Israel.

Gilad's girlfriend Carmel is married to a dying man whose death she anxiously awaits. His patients, a motley crew whom the reader comes to know well, include an atheist who describes himself as suffering from Faith Deficit Disorder, a Beat poet who writes paeans to a porn star goddess, a woman who believes she is dead, and the Palestinian murderer of a young Israeli woman, whom the military has assigned to the asylum for observation.

The dark humor of daily life in Israel permeates the novel, from Gilad's delay of his departure for work until he has heard that the daily deaths and bombings by terrorists have already occurred (and have missed him once again), to his running around to military camps throughout the country to obtain files and paperwork for one of his patients. His trip to the Palestinian territories to a casino (populated entirely by Jews, since gambling is anathema to Muslims), and his attempts to take his patients on an outing to a restaurant add to the color and sense of absurdity.

Moments of hilarity abound, varying in style from rapid-fire, who's-on-first interchanges, to descriptions of personal quirks, the inclusion of absurd poems by a patient, Carmel's constant, chorus-like interruptions of Gilad's day at work, and literary discussions of Robinson Crusoe, which Gilad is trying to read at work. Stream of consciousness writing and free association, some of it related to Gilad's interest in heavy metal music, are interposed into discussions of life and literature, creating a wild, existential tone. Plot is almost non-existent. Fortunately, the light touch, the humor, the self-deprecating commentary, and the pseudo-angst of the main character provide enough intrinsic excitement and charm to keep the reader going in lieu of a "real" story. Mary Whipple



Rating:
Summary: A hilarious and provocative political satire
Review: Perhaps the only ones entitled to an understanding of the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are madmen. Gilad Elbom has managed to create the best analogy for the middle east from the most unlikely building blocks: an insane asylum in Jerusalem, a very literary obsession with Z-movie porn actresses, a passion for heavy metal and linguistics and a deep sense of emotional detachment from everything else. Elbom's fictional self, just wants to relax in his new job as a male nurse, as he tries to repress the complexities of his affair with a married woman awaiting her husbands death, his conflicted attitude towards Israel's Arab population and his mother's nagging him to do something with his life. But as the narrative unravels through serpentine dialogues between him and his patients, from Immanuel Sebastian who doesn't believe in anything (not even nihilism) to Hadassah Benedict, who is quite convinced she is dead, his grip on reality gets increasingly shakey. Scream Queens of the Dead Sea is a convoluted paradox in which split personalities take over the plot and plot to takeover, all without ever really escaping the stagnation that defines their existence as it reflects the regime that created it.


Rating:
Summary: *
Review: Self-reflexive, pensive, and depressing while simultaneously "whitty" and strangely light-hearted with a weight around it's ankle - its everything you'd want in a good read. An entertaining and candid articulation of the in-between spaces in life - a malaise when one doesn't realize how pregnant the pause.

Rating:
Summary: THIS GUY CAN WRITE
Review: This book is one of the funniest things I've ever read. I laughed my ass off, but at the end it turned out to be a pretty serious book. I loved the heavy metal references. I loved the dirty sex scenes. I loved the smart take on the Middle East. And even though I don't know jack about linguistics, I thought that stuff was interesting too. Get it. You won't regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Winter in Jerusalem
Review: waves. very small ones. rain among the pine trees, on the road to the point of no return. is it death, or just the smell of rotten eggs? look behind you but beware: the pillar of salt always shadows the ruins of the ancient. was it a home, a homeland, or perhaps a figment of imagination, wild with paranoia and messianic visions? don't believe anything you read, not even the bible. and when someone says "I love you" think twice; no, thrice, before you reply. if you do decide to see the holy land, better postpone the visit until mid-April at least, and then be sure to mark your door with the blood of the innocent.