War!

You may have been fighting with your wife, with one or another refusing to talk to the other, when you awakened to the declaration of war by Netanyahu in the wake of the Hamas attacks. What you have been fighting over is trivial. You undoubtedly realize it’s all about power and who will ultimately prevail. Usually, these domestic squabbles begin innocently. They gather force like a hurricane, with warm waters of discontent brewing below the surface. History is hysteria is the Alinon expression. A thimble certainly represents one’s mother, but a father too, since it was his sock that was being darned. You're accused of being intransigent. Reprisal is the only move, before your Queen is taken hostage. In Israel the stakes are intrinsic rather than symbolic with land as the currency that's laundered into the next generation of resentments. Every been in a standoff? You exchange words with a cabbie. Before you know it, he’s out on the street, in front of you, while the world (aka your wife, husband or partner) watches with a mixture of fear and distaste. Where does it end? Do you throw that punch? And if you do, do you end up at the hospital or police station?

read the review of Francis Levy's The Kafka Studies Department on Booklist

and watch the trailer for Erotomania