The Fragile Mistress

The Fragile Mistress tells the story of an adolescent girl in Israel in the early '60s. Her character's mother had grown up in British Mandate Palestine, one of several factors making the memory bank of this book so rich -- appropriate for a place with almost too much history to bear and retain one's sanity at the same time.

What is most memorable is the sense of place, bright yet frightening Jerusalem and the countryside around it. Also filling the book is the hope, love, hate and fatalism of people, both Israelis and Palestinians, who live together yet apart in a thin, rocky corridor shaded by old gray-green olive trees.

Perhaps above all, the novel, told with restraint and poetic precision, is about how we soldier on with the weight of history and family on our shoulders.