On Her Own bu Lihi Lapid
Posted by d'Ettaquette
On Her Own, a new novel by Lihi Lapid is, in part, a love letter to Israel and an exposé of the country’s social problems. Its author is a formidable woman, a former news photographer with the IDF, an advocate of Shekel, an organization that supports people with special needs, journalist, mother of two children (one of whom has autism), a feminist, and of course wife to the former Prime Mister Yair Lapid. Her latest novel however left me wanting.
The plot centers on a reckless high-school dropout, Nina, raised by a single mother, a Russian immigrant. Nina sees her mother Irina, exhausted, cleaning houses in Jerusalem. She envisions a better life, convinced she’ll attain it with heartthrob ‘Johnny’ Shmueli.
Unbeknownst to Nina, Shmueli is a mobster who traffics in young women. Stressed by sustained discord with her mother, offset by declarations of eternal love from the much-married Shmueli, Nina abandons her home and leaps at the chance to realize her dreams with Shmueli’s offer: her own palatial apartment in Tel Aviv. Shmueli confiscates Nina’s cell-phone blocking communication with anyone. Confronted with the sexual currency, which Shmueli extracts for his generosity, Nina escapes. She hides in a stairwell inside a nearby building - a temporary safe haven. There, she encounters Carmela, an old woman seemingly lost.
Carmela has dementia, “a fog of forgetfulness enveloping her.” Her one son Uri, a fallen soldier, died fighting in Israel’s wars. Carmela dutifully visits his grave each Memorial Day, grieving his short life. Her other son, Itamar, his wife Naama and little Dana relocate to America with a promise to return to Israel within a year.
However, Naama loves American comfort and wallows in its sumptuous materialism with no intent to give it up. Alone, confused, Carmela can barely manage her daily life. She longs to be with her granddaughter “Dana’le.”
When Carmela notices Nina in the stairwell, she mistakenly believes Nina is her beloved Dana’le returned from America. Carmela invites Nina into her apartment while days pass without Irina hearing from her daughter who seems to have disappeared. In trouble for suspected murder, Shmueli seeks out Irina, with a warning against seeking help from police to locate her daughter. He escapes with Irina’s cell phone.
Lehi spares no ink praising Israeli culture and meaningful values as well as unresolved societal issues - the plight of disaffected youth, the difficulties facing the aged and the integration of new immigrants. However, Lihi’s gratuitous psychological analyses and uninspired prose failed to hold my interest in many parts of the novel.