Etgar Keret is trying to explain to his little boy why fathers protect their sons: "'The world we live in can sometimes be very rough. And it's only fair that everyone who's born into it should have at least one person who'll be there to protect him.' 'What about you?'" Lev asks. "'Who'll protect you now that Grandpa's dead?'"
This moving exchange perfectly captures the delights of this new book by the Israeli writer, Etgar Keret. The world he writes about is "very tough". His parents survived wartime Poland. There are some astonishing passages about their experiences during the Holocaust. And then there is present-day Israel. Many of the short pieces that make up this book are set against the contemporary realities of war, fear and terrorism.
The first story begins in a hospital in Tel Aviv. There's just been a terrorist attack. The last story, Pastrami, is about how Keret and his wife try to reassure their son after an air-raid siren has just gone off. All these autobiographical pieces are about lives caught between the traumatic past and the anxious present.
And what better guide to such an anxious present than Keret, a self-confessed "stressed-out Jew"? It's hard to tell how much the narrator is the writer himself and how much he is a construct, a sort of Tevye for our times, neurotic, overweight, unfit, put-upon by his wife, herself a great comic creation. He seems recognisable from the documentary, Etgar Keret: What Animal Are You? but the narrator as character, like the stories, feels superbly crafted.
Above all, there is the bitter-sweet tone of the writing. Loss and sadness is depicted in the story of a taxi driver ruined by his first traffic accident in 30 years, in Keret's wife's miscarriage, his father's cancer. But there are also many moments of humour. In one, Keret's wife comes home and finds him lying on the floor. When she finally understands something is wrong her first words are: "You had it coming".
'There are astonishing passages about their experiences in the Holocaust'
In another, Keret and his wife are called in to see their son's teacher. At one point, the two women "exchanged the empathetic smiles of women stuck with men who have three pizzerias on speed dial but have never seen the inside of a gym."
These short pieces about Keret's daily life in Tel Aviv capture the strangeness of living in a country constantly threatened by violence but they also allow the normality of ordinary life to shine through.
Above all, they are a reminder that Keret is one of the outstanding writers of his generation.
