Author Etgar Keret is sort of the Israeli Kafka. His new book, The Seven Good Years (Riverhead Books) — billed as a “memoir” — covers the years from the birth of his son to the death of his father. Following a year by year chronology, the loosely linked chapters offer sweet stories laced with absurdist humor about family members, travel to book fairs in far-flung corners of the world and musings on life’s strange byways. In “My Lamented Sister,” he writes: “Nineteen years ago, in a small wedding hall in Bnei Brak, my older sister died, and she now lives in the most Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem.” That sister later returns in “Shiva,” where a visitor tells Keret a story about his father that he had never heard. There’s a lot to delight and warm your heart in this slim volume. — M.S.
(American Jewish World, 7.17.15)
