Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #267689 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-01
• Released on: 2005-01-13
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From The New Yorker
In Grossman's latest novel, which tumbles along the dusty streets of Jerusalem, adolescent idealism and angst keep the characters on the move. Assaf, a shy misfit, embarks upon a quixotic journey with a lost dog to find its mistress. Tamar, a caustic fifteen-year-old who can sing Mozart and Leonard Cohen on demand, runs away from home to find the criminals who have ensnared her older brother. A young street musician, in the grip of a heroin habit as formidable as his talent, stumbles through his routines with death close behind. The resulting picaresque is a cross between "Run Lola Run" and "Oliver Twist," and as the reader waits for these solitary odysseys to intersect, the urgency becomes almost unbearable. Grossman evokes teen-age nobility and self-hatred in all its pimply particularity, while slyly suggesting that the arduous quest for connections should never be outgrown.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com

Reading a novel in translation, it's been said, is like eating a boiled strawberry. Readers of Someone to Run With, the new novel by Israeli writer David Grossman, may well wonder: What on earth was this, before it hit the water? Grossman is widely known, and much respected, for his intricate novels of modern Israeli life. By contrast, Someone to Run With has a hook that seems tailor-made for a young adult readership: two Jerusalem teens on the run in that city's underworld, one looking to save her brother from drug addiction, the other to find the owner of a lost dog. They're an appealing duo -- trio, counting the dog -- and the novel's converging plotlines provide an atmosphere of romantic predestination that's no less engaging for being thoroughly predictable.

Yet the novel seems puzzlingly at odds with itself. Despite its YA storyline, it's a dense text, often ponderously descriptive, both in the presentation of its setting and in the degree of moment-to-moment psychological detail limning its characters. This makes for slow going, particularly in the novel's early chapters, where the chronology is elaborately scrambled.

Compounding these difficulties, crucial information is delayed so far into the tale that, for nearly half of its tightly packed 343 pages, the two characters' separate journeys through the city exist in narrative suspension. We know, for instance, that the girl Tamar, who has left her family for life on the streets, has stocked a cave in the countryside with food and other supplies. But we have no idea why. The effect is the same kind of false suspense favored by writers of popular crime and courtroom novels: As readers we're asked to remain engaged by events that everyone understands but us.

Grossman's novel has won a number of prestigious literary prizes, both in Israel and Europe, and in the book's defense, there's much to praise. At bottom, Grossman has written an urban adventure story, and he sets it in motion like a pro. As the novel begins, 16-year-old Assaf, a summer employee of the city's sanitation department whose parents have been called away to the United States, is charged with finding the owner of a lost dog.

As a narrative catalyst, a high-spirited Labrador retriever is hard to beat. Dragged pell-mell through the Jerusalem streets, Assaf lurches from one picaresque encounter to another, gradually assembling a portrait of the dog's missing owner, the troubled and mysterious Tamar, whom he becomes bent on rescuing.

Tamar, we learn, is on a mission of her own. She's left her home, disguised herself with a severe haircut, and taken up life as a street singer. A lot is hazy, but gradually the shape of her plan emerges: She hopes to attract the attention of a Fagan-like figure named Pesach, in the hope that he will lead her to her missing brother, a heroin-addicted musician.

Their twin quests -- Assaf's for Tamar, Tamar's for her brother -- offer a portrait of the teenage mind that's both refreshingly noble and convincingly observed. When Tamar finally infiltrates Pesach's organization and catches sight of the brother she hopes, against all odds, to save, she experiences a blast of self-confidence that perfectly captures the adolescent's largeness of feeling for the world: "Something new had happened to her: the unfamiliar winds of tranquility blew through her . . . . It would probably disappear in a minute -- but she would treasure it always, she would remember that place in her body where she felt it, where it was created, and would try to return there." At such moments, we can feel these two young people stepping into life.

This spell is broken, unfortunately, by a string of peculiarities within the text. In contrast to the subtle rendering of Grossman's adolescent characters, nearly all the adults in the book read like hastily sketched cartoons. This occurs most glaringly in the dialogue, especially in scenes of violent confrontation, when the translation assumes a weirdly lock-step literalness. A pair of street toughs threatens to "sexually abuse" Assaf and taunts him by asking "What's the matter, sister? We didn't drink our chocolate milk today? Mom ran out of Gerber food?" When Tamar narrowly escapes being caught making an illicit phone call from Pesach's office, his threats seem less menacing than badly dubbed: "You got lucky this time," he cautions. "It stinks to the sky, but you got lucky. Now open up your ears real good . . . one more time, if you so much as tickle the edge of my edge, you're finished." I couldn't help but think that in the next moment he would assume the preying mantis pose and say, "I must warn you, my Kung Fu is very good."

These idiomatic misfires -- and they're disconcertingly plentiful -- badly hamstring the novel, undercutting the seriousness of its themes with bursts of inadvertent hilarity. No less unconvincing is the book's denouement, a creaky deus ex machina.

I was left wondering who the novel was meant for. Adult readers with the patience to span the wide waters of its slower sections? Or teenagers, who would so closely identify with the main characters that they could pardon the book's hokier moments?

The answer is neither. Someone to Run With is best suited to one audience: readers of the original Hebrew.

Reviewed by Justin Cronin

Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
Very different from Grossman's books of political commentary, this entertaining novel is more like his Zigzag Kid (1997), part urban survival adventure, part YA romance, and part mystery. A best-seller in Israel and translated from the Hebrew in an informal, relaxed style, the story weaves together the lives of two middle-class teens who find themselves in Jerusalem's violent drug underworld. Tamar, a talented singer, runs away from home with her beloved dog, shaves her head, sets up a hideout. Who is she searching for? Why is she on the run? When she loses her dog, awkward, shy teenager Assaf finds the stray lab, who then leads him on a wild chase across the city until they find Tamar. The mob violence is too easily resolved, but the many plot surprises about "unconscious messengers" are fun, even when they are awkwardly contrived. For many readers, the most memorable character will be the lost dog, who always knows where he is going, who he is, and whom he loves. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Top literature
Inspiring, like everything Grossman writes. A great writer and a great novel. In an indirect way, it restores the faith I once had in Israel, faith somewhat shaken by recent Israeli behaviours.

An excellent book
First of all, let's start out by discussing the translation - this is a translated book. In its original Hebrew, "Someone to Run With" has a very distinct style of long sentences and a strange, but perfect, flow. The English translation sort of breaks up this flow, but maintains the FEEL, maintains the overall impression, one that is entirely favorable.

The story is a fascinating and engaging one. It begins with 16-year old Assaf running with a dog. Or, rather, chasing a mad dog. Soon, Assaf's story begins to unfold and it becomes clear that he has no idea what he's getting into. Similarly, Tamar's story begins and the reader realizes that Assaf is being thrust into something far bigger than he expects.

This is a story about many things. It is a mystery story, an adventure tale, and in some respects just a perfect young adult book. It is appropriate for teens and above. The characters are perfectly real and enjoyable. The book sucks you in and captures you. There really is no way NOT to like this book. The constantly shifting views will keep you on your toes, not knowing what might happen next. The different times of the two overlapping stories will keep it interesting.

Assaf and Tamar's stories are two fascinating tales of teens forced to grow up, of friendship and of love, and of family. It is an incredible book that will hold you tight and is thoroughly satisfying. Well-written, emotional, and powerful in addition to simply interesting, "Someone to Run With" is an essential read for any true book lover.

Highly recommended!

Heart Filling
I did not know about David Grossman, maybe because as I understand it, he only writes in Hebrew (this book was written in 2000 and translated into English in 2004). I first heard of him when he was interviewed on TV regarding his son, who was killed recently in Lebanon. This is a beautiful, mature (as opposed to "adult") love story written with such purity that I would be happy to recommend it to my grandchildren. The kind of experience of young true love that some of us remember, where sex was just the icing on the cake; at the end of this book, the cake was not even iced yet. I was very sorry to see it end, but not for that reason. The character development was so well done that I felt I was beginning to have some new frienda that I wanted to know better. David Grossman must know a lot about music. As an intrumentalist and sometimes performer, his descriptions of feeling involved in the music performing process rang a lot of familiar bells. He, of course, knows a lot about writing too. His two main characters, the boy (think Koontz Odd Thomas) and the beautiful 16 year old runaway singing genius girl, were developed like two alternately played musical themes in a symphony, tied together by a third theme, the dog, who loved them both before they met. Grossman must know a lot about dogs too. Indeed he knows a lot about life, and how to express it in print. A lot of surprises too, with hints dropped along the way that something is coming up - the other shoe is going to drop. A great, heart-filling read - I hope to find some more Grossman in the future.