The Wolf Hunt

March 1, 2023

In this latest from Sapir Prize--winning Israeli author Gundar-Goshen, Black teenager Jamal dies of a drug overdose at a party held at the home of Israeli immigrants amid rumors of bad blood between him and the family's son, Adam. With a 30,000-copy first printing.) Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2023
The dark experiences of an Israeli immigrant family in "one of the greenest, quietest, safest cities in America." Israeli-born Lilach and Mikhael Shuster "raised an American child who went to high school with American children, and now they say he killed another American child," we learn in the first pages of Gundar-Goshen's third novel. Like many of the husbands in their neighborhood, Mikhael works in tech, but "while other companies in Silicon Valley developed apps for internet shopping, the company Mikhael worked for developed security products, which was a nice way of saying 'weapons.' " As for the women, Lilach wryly notes, "there were sleep consultants and breastfeeding con-sultants and toilet-training consultants. There were also couples therapists and art therapists. But the people who provided real care were the Hispanic women who came to our houses every day by public transportation. They took care of the art therapists' children while the art therapists were taking care of the couples therapists' children." Lilach's alienation and anxiety escalate when there is a violent attack on a local synagogue, then skyrocket when a Black teenager dies at a party and her son, Adam, becomes the prime suspect. Like the other Jewish mothers in the community, she has signed Adam up to take self-defense classes with an Israeli named Uri Ziv, rumored to be ex-Mossad. Adam worships Uri, who also becomes very close with Mikhael and gets a job at his company; as the family is targeted, Uri becomes their protector. But should they trust him? Gundar-Goshen navigates the landscape of racial prejudice, particularly the tension between Jews and the Nation of Islam, through the eyes of an Israeli immigrant who is already scarred by experiences of terrorism in Israel. Sexual identity and bullying also play roles in the plot, which moves uneasily to a conclusion that leaves some questions unanswered. Gundar-Goshen solidifies her brand with this ambitious novel, her first set in the United States. Flawed but relatable characters and off-the-charts emotional intensity with a sharply evoked Israeli cultural perspective.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 31, 2023
The latest from Gundar-Goshen (The Liar) is an ethically complex literary thriller. Israeli immigrant Lilach Shuster lives comfortably in Silicon Valley, where her husband, Mikhael, is COO of a weapons tech company and their teenage son, Adam, enjoys science. But a deadly attack at a local synagogue shatters the community’s sense of safety. Adam, along with other Jewish teens, signs up for krav maga–style defense training led by the charismatic, intense Uri, an acquaintance of Mikhael’s from when they were in the Israeli army. When Jamal, a Black teen who repeatedly bullied Adam, dies at a party of an apparent overdose, Adam becomes a suspect and antisemitic graffiti surfaces at his high school. Amid escalating blame and suspicion and with little social or professional support, Lilach feels alienated—not truly part of an American community, no longer fully Israeli—and at odds with the rest of her family due to her mounting skepticism of the mysterious Uri and his methods. Gundar-Goshen effectively employs the long history of tension between Jews and the Nation of Islam, as well as the latent prejudices of her characters, to cast doubt and build suspense. These biases include Lilach’s own, which surface in her narration and make for an intriguing character study. This brainy suburban suspense novel is both taut and timely.

Starred review from July 1, 2023
The unsettling latest by Israeli novelist Gundar-Goshen (Waking Lions, 2014) is set in "one of the greenest, quietest, safest cities in America," a Silicon Valley town that is rocked first by the murder of a high-school student at a synagogue and then by the possibly drug-related death of Jamal, a Black teenager from the same high school who died at a party. Narrator Lilach, an anxious mom who emigrated with her tech-expert husband, Mikhael, from Israel a year before her unhappy 16-year-old son Adam was born, gradually begins to wonder whether Adam had something to do with Jamal's death, especially when graffiti blaming him appears at his school. After the synagogue killing, Adam enrolled in a suspiciously intense self-defense class led by former Israeli commando Uri. As Adam, Lilach, and Mikhael all become entangled with the charismatic Uri--whose voice, an uncomfortably infatuated Lilach thinks, is "like the music of the Pied Piper of Hamelin"--Lilach becomes increasingly fearful and distrustful, trying on one narrative after another to make sense of Adam's increasingly disturbing behavior. Gundar-Goshen presents the reader with glimpses into other stories Lilach hasn't considered, resolving some mysteries but leaving others to reverberate beyond the final page.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.