Matt Rees's Blog - Posts Tagged "liad-shoham"
New Israeli thriller focuses on life beyond the conflict
The first English translation of Israel's top crime novelist
Liad Shoham has been the most successful Israeli crime writer for some years now. Lineup, the first of his books to appear in English, has just been published in the US. Liad guest posts here about how he came to write his novels.
Several years ago, I was studying for my master’s degree in law at the London School of Economics. A few days after the beginning of the term, we had a departmental cocktail party. The school dean went around the room from one student to the next asking each where he or she came from and what they intended to study. When I said I was Israeli, and before I had had a chance to tell the dean what fields interested me most, he gleefully announced that the school had an “excellent course on the laws of war”.
Later I had the opportunity to meet my London classmates and to tell them that I had started writing legal thrillers. I was expecting to elicit the reaction I got from my Israeli friends: what does a geek like you know about writing thrillers? But my non-Israeli friends (despite, I suspect, sharing the sentiment) were more surprised by the fact that this genre even exists in Israel.
Well, it does. It is true that when Israel was founded and fighting for its survival this type of fiction was considered too frivolous for words and accordingly there were few thriller writers. Even the ones who wrote thrillers tended to publish under pen names. But Israel is changing and maturing and our literature reflects this. As David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said: “We’ll be a country like all other countries only once we have Israeli thieves and Israeli prostitutes.” And if I may expand on that -- Israeli thrillers.
One can certainly learn a great deal about Israel by listening to the international news and by reading novels dealing with the Arab Israeli conflict. But this will probably create a skewed view of the country, as anyone who has sampled Tel Aviv’s nightlife can attest. One might learn a great deal by exploring Israel’s daily life and crime fiction is a great place to start as it deals with the discovery of the truth, portrays how the police, the judicial system, the media and criminals operate and especially how do they operate under pressure.
Lineup is my fifth thriller. The story occurs in Israel. However, the plot could have taken place in almost any other Western democracy. Yet, I feel that Lineup is also a very Israeli story.
First and foremost, the characters demonstrate a tendency toward improvisation and a rather lax attitude towards process and decorum. Lineup is told by several people. Each narrator provides his or her own worldview. Everyone tries to do what they feel is right, even if what is “right” doesn’t follow the rules. They tend to go light on long-term planning, and rather improvise their way from one problem to the next. In a young country that needs to cope with a dynamically changing reality, improvisation is an integral part of life. I think that the book was also influenced to a great extent by the fact that the storyline occurs in a small place, in terms of geographical size and population. There’s nowhere to run away to, everyone potentially knows everyone else, and there will be constant meddling in your business. This same overcrowding creates involvement and a lot of family influence. Oh, yeah, it’s also very hot here in the summer.
A decade has passed since my days as a student in London and I don’t know what the dean is now saying to Israeli students. I hope that we, the Israelis as well as the Arabs, are able to create a narrative that is not only about the conflict and the laws of war. Lineup is my small contribution to this.
Liad Shoham has been the most successful Israeli crime writer for some years now. Lineup, the first of his books to appear in English, has just been published in the US. Liad guest posts here about how he came to write his novels.
Several years ago, I was studying for my master’s degree in law at the London School of Economics. A few days after the beginning of the term, we had a departmental cocktail party. The school dean went around the room from one student to the next asking each where he or she came from and what they intended to study. When I said I was Israeli, and before I had had a chance to tell the dean what fields interested me most, he gleefully announced that the school had an “excellent course on the laws of war”.
Later I had the opportunity to meet my London classmates and to tell them that I had started writing legal thrillers. I was expecting to elicit the reaction I got from my Israeli friends: what does a geek like you know about writing thrillers? But my non-Israeli friends (despite, I suspect, sharing the sentiment) were more surprised by the fact that this genre even exists in Israel.
Well, it does. It is true that when Israel was founded and fighting for its survival this type of fiction was considered too frivolous for words and accordingly there were few thriller writers. Even the ones who wrote thrillers tended to publish under pen names. But Israel is changing and maturing and our literature reflects this. As David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, said: “We’ll be a country like all other countries only once we have Israeli thieves and Israeli prostitutes.” And if I may expand on that -- Israeli thrillers.
One can certainly learn a great deal about Israel by listening to the international news and by reading novels dealing with the Arab Israeli conflict. But this will probably create a skewed view of the country, as anyone who has sampled Tel Aviv’s nightlife can attest. One might learn a great deal by exploring Israel’s daily life and crime fiction is a great place to start as it deals with the discovery of the truth, portrays how the police, the judicial system, the media and criminals operate and especially how do they operate under pressure.
Lineup is my fifth thriller. The story occurs in Israel. However, the plot could have taken place in almost any other Western democracy. Yet, I feel that Lineup is also a very Israeli story.
First and foremost, the characters demonstrate a tendency toward improvisation and a rather lax attitude towards process and decorum. Lineup is told by several people. Each narrator provides his or her own worldview. Everyone tries to do what they feel is right, even if what is “right” doesn’t follow the rules. They tend to go light on long-term planning, and rather improvise their way from one problem to the next. In a young country that needs to cope with a dynamically changing reality, improvisation is an integral part of life. I think that the book was also influenced to a great extent by the fact that the storyline occurs in a small place, in terms of geographical size and population. There’s nowhere to run away to, everyone potentially knows everyone else, and there will be constant meddling in your business. This same overcrowding creates involvement and a lot of family influence. Oh, yeah, it’s also very hot here in the summer.
A decade has passed since my days as a student in London and I don’t know what the dean is now saying to Israeli students. I hope that we, the Israelis as well as the Arabs, are able to create a narrative that is not only about the conflict and the laws of war. Lineup is my small contribution to this.
