End

A healthy man is compelled to set out on journeys to the medical, urban, professional and erotic regions that comprise his life. He gallops on the horse of his anxieties, calculating when the End will come, delineating the borders between memories of childhood, birth and parenting, thoughts of divorce, bottles of liquor and lubricious descriptions of sex. At the center of the book, there is a masculine consciousness very different from that of the usual repertoire of Hebrew literature, one that aligns with the heroes of modern world literature. In parallel with engagement with the individual—the hero, the abundant, burgeoning descriptions create a distinct geographical and urban space. All of this is accompaniment to the process of taking leave, full of love but devoid of sentimentality, from his mother who is living in a medical institution.

End is the first work of prose by Jacob Mishori, a painter of repute and a teacher with a powerful presence on the Israeli artistic scene. Roving recklessly between the tempting aspect of death and the alluring light of life, this novel is a remarkable work of literature, audacious and outspoken, a resolute dance between bourgeois cafes and gleaming pharmacies, cacophonous streets and bustling inter-urban bus stations. The book is unique and radical, from the language to the corporal and sensual phenomenology that Mishori creates as if the words were paints on his palette.