Early Grace

Can a 49-year-old teacher and his 17-year-old pupil escape to a desert island to consummate their love? In his very believable and captivating novel, Eyal Megged illustrates that the difficulties the two face are far more emotional than social. Dror, a 49-year-old literature teacher from Jerusalem and the father of a three-year-old boy, has just left his wife. A special relationship begins to develop between Dror and his pupil, Omer. At first, this relationship is based on soul-searching discussions about matters of literary and spiritual importance. Omer, liberated and driven, is interested in developing a romantic relationship with her teacher. However Dror is torn between his paternal feelings for the young girl, while also charmed by her femininity and youthfulness.

This is not the story of an adult man’s sexual obsession with an underage girl, as in Nabokov’s Lolita. Rather, it is the story of a middle-aged man’s desire to recapture his lost youth. The two escape to Zanzibar, and for a fleeting moment they seem to have landed in an erotic paradise. Dror soon comes to his senses, leaves Omer in a huff and returns to Jerusalem. There he meets Omer`s mother, a mature and attractive woman whom he finds much more sexually appealing than her daughter.

The romance was doomed from the start, and the plot ends in tragedy. The two fly to Zanzibar to bring young Omer home, but they are too late. When they arrive, they discover that Omer had contracted malaria and died.

Early Grace topped Israel`s bestseller lists for weeks.