Edges: O Israel, O Palestine
by Leora Skolkin-Smith

List Price: $15.00
Pages: 176
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1930180144
Publisher: Glad Day

Edges, was selected and edited by Grace Paley for Glad Day Books. Set in a pre-1967 Israel/Palestine Edges takes the reader to an Israel before high walls formed a border, when, instead, metal wires hung "like hosiery lines" across the land.  Liana Barish is fourteen years old when the suicide of her American father forces her mother, mourning, in despair back to her family--to Jerusalem where she grew up. For Liana it is the place where the powerful interdependence of mother and daughter--physical and spiritual--ends. It is the place of her sexual awakening. Characters are drawn from Israel’s long-forgotten past, members of the 1940’s Haganah and Jewish underground who find themselves displaced amidst the chaotic and complex tensions of an Israel just beginning to modernize and expand

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1. In the beginning of the novel, how would you describe Liana's feelings and attitude towards her mother? How do Liana's feelings about her mother change during the course of the novel?

2. How does the author use the physical geography of Israel as it relates to Liana's own personal growth? How do the rough and raw territories of pre-1967 Jerusalem play a role, reflecting Liana's inner battles? What is the significance of all the geographical boundaries or lack of boundaries of her mother's land?

3. Why do you think Skolkin-Smith chose to make Liana's lover an American diplomat?

4. After William leaves Liana, she decides to return to her mother and Jerusalem. Why doesn't she go to the police station to report the Arab boy's death in the forest? What does she fear? What does this tell us about her inner conflicts as well as the conflicts of the larger war?

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"Edges is an elegant and moving novel. Leora Skolkin-Smith has that rare gift of the writer who can convey the sensibility — the essence of a place and its people — with precision and clarity. A provocative debut."

—Katharine Weber, book critic, New York Times journalist and author of Triangle, The Llittle Women, The Music Lesson, and Objects In The Mirror Are Cloer Than They Appear

"Where, and how and to whom do we really belong? Skolkin's brilliant debut novel is a hypnotic meditation on the ever-changing boundaries of love and need. A coming of age story of the bond between a young American and her powerful mother, etched in a wartime Mideast as shifting and dangerous and mysterious as the Israeli desert."

— Caroline Leavitt, columnist at The Boston Globe and author of Girls In Trouble

"Edges is a novel "told with restraint and poetic precision, ...memorable (for the) the sense of place that Ms. Skolkin-Smith has achieved -- the sunny and scary Jerusalem and countryside -- and the hope, love, hate and fatalism of the groups, Palestinian and Israeli, living amongst and apart from each other..."

—Robert Whitcomb at The Providence Journal

"An elegantly written, quite moving novel that has a lot to say about love, identity, history and the meaning of nationality. The book is worth reading alone for its superb language, but it is gripping and unforgettable as well in its story telling and evocation of place and emotions. It is a wonderful novel by an author with a quite accomplished voice and style, one well deserving a wide and receptive audience"

—Oscar Hijuelos, author of the Pulitzer-prize winning novel, The Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love

"Edges is a dark and penetrating look at pre-1967 Israel and Palestine through the eyes of a 14 year old Liana Bialik. After her American father's suicide, Liana's Jerusalem-born mother decides to take Liana and her sister back to her homeland, where her family had lived for four generations. Once they get to Israel Liana, who feels overwhelmed and suffocated by her mother, begins to detach herself from her. She embarks on a mission of self-discovery to learn whyher mother does not speak about her father and why he took his own life.Edges is well-written, powerful in both imagery and subject matter..."

—Jewish Book World, Spring 2006, Vol. 24, Number 1