Review: Here I Am

Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was great. In fact, since A Little Life I have had a hard time finding anything I like since then. But I am a big fan of Foer's, and eagerly awaited the release of this book.

The story is of a Jewish family whose Israeli cousins come for a visit on the eve of several major events - the bar mitzvah of their son, the dissolution of their marriage, and an unexpected collapse of Israel. All of these plots intertwine, but it is really the dissolution of the marriage that takes center stage. It was frustrating at times to read, because there were such obvious things that both the husband and wife could have done (and whose internal monologue knew it) to make things better. Or maybe not frustrating as much as tragic. In any case, one of the most perfect depictions of the internal workings of a marriage (and of the American Jewish experience) I've read in a long time.

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