Another Love Story

A 60-year-old man’s obsessive desire for a 27-year-old woman lies at the heart of the plot. Alex, a successful Israeli film producer, is paralyzed by memories of his beloved wife Dina, who died a year ago. An invitation to produce a film for German television proves to be a turning-point for him. On his way to Hamburg – his father’s birthplace and the place where he will celebrate his sixtieth birthday – he is delayed in Copenhagen and sleeps with a strange woman, the first since the death of his wife. Two days later, in Berlin, he meets Nilli, a liberated and capricious Israeli art student. The two begin a passionate, volatile affair. Nilli reveals to him that her mother is a woman with whom he had a liaison many years before. When Alex returns to Tel Aviv, he visits the mother and a painful triangle is born between the three, overshadowed by the enduring memory of Dina.

Alex’s sexual enslavement by Nilli is masterfully rendered, as is the destructive progress of their affair, including a suicide attempt, violent jealousy and mental collapse. While the novel deals with Kaniuk’s usual concerns – Israelis and Germany, parents and children – Another Love Story is primarily an exploration of the wayward desires of the heart.