Weeping Susannah

By Alona Kimhi

Book Overview

At 33, obsessive, hypersensitive Susannah Rabin lives with her mother, their cloistered world providing a barrier to the excruciating torment of human contact. But then Susannah's mother tells her that they are going to have a guest--Susannah's cousin, a young man from New York. Susannah is horrified. Until the guest arrives, looking uncannily like Percy Bysshe Shelley. Fascinated by his exoticism, Susannah finds herself going to the movies, meeting his friends, swimming at night. But then Susannah's mother becomes troubled by their friendship, and asks the obvious question--What is he doing in Israel?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1860466303
• ISBN13: 9781860466304
• Release Date: May 2002
• Publisher: Random House UK
• Length: 391 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

My thoughts on...

I'm not normally a huge fan of stream-of-consciousness novels, but really I like Susannah Rabin ("no relation") and the restrictive world she has locked herself in. When the novel starts, she is excessively timid and withdrawn (to the point that she pees in a vase in her room so that her bodily functions won't be overheard - a vase that will eventually mirror her development through the novel). When Neo, whom she calls "the guest," moves in, she at first abhors his presence, until it becomes clear that he has been sent (like Daniel to her namesake) to rescue her, in this case from her own self-destruction, and she falls in love with him, or rather, with his access to the world outside, "[a] world of living people." What I really liked is that it is not "the guest" who eventually frees Susannah - he is merely the impetus to her metamorphosis - it is she, in her roundabout way, who brings about her own rebirth. It's a slow read, as all the little details Susannah mentions add up to the whole at the end, but if you decide to delve into her world, you'll find yourself rewarded, not only with Susannah's ponderings but with a whole world of Tel Avivian and Israeli life.