Harare Review of Books

326 pp. Published January 14, 2025 by Delphinium Books. Fiction.

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Let me explain why I both think this is an excellent novel, and a flawed one. Nothing happens in a vacuum (on Earth anyway), and so no book can be read in a vacuum. The context of this story, fairly or unfairly, has to be the genocide in Gaza; the longer context being the Nakba, on which part of the plot hinges (the inciting incident is related to that specifically). So I found myself judging the merits of the novel in light of my deep sympathy for Palestinians. In that context, The Anatomy of Exile feels to me unconscionable in that part of what it may have set out to do: to justify things from the standpoint of its Israeli protagonists.

Having said that very harsh thing, I’ll explain what I did enjoy: This is a touching, engaging, and well-written story, about star-crossed love echoing across generations. It asks its characters—particularly the central one, Tamar—to make different choices than before. With difficulty and against her internal resistance, Tamar evolves, learns to get past her (hidden) prejudices against and antipathy for Arabs and Muslims—a kind of irony as she has married an Arab Jew herself. But we know stories of people who fall in love in spite of their prejudices—a human flaw—and then have to confront them in the after. This is Tamar.

What’s the question the book is trying to answer? Perhaps a suggestion that love and direct human connection can begin to heal feuds between families and rifts in societies. It’s as good an answer as any, given the generations-long and intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If it feels too pat, that’s because, perhaps, fiction can only do so much. Certainly this book does not try to answer any of the hardest questions (which goes back to my scepticism: The novel pulls back, and so abdicates any real power).

So pick this up for a wonderful story about Israeli and Palestinian lives and families—always a pleasure to read into other cultures—but expect a fairly pro-Israeli perspective that tends to flatten the brutality against and reality of Palestinian lives. I was conflicted when I finished reading the book; but again, nota bene, my politics got in the way.

Thank you to Delphinium Books and Edelweiss for early DRC access.

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