Four Sons

The life and experiences of a young homosexual are described with ruthless humor in four revelatory stories. Together they may be read as chapters in an autobiography of a young Israeli man, growing up and maturing in a depressed neighborhood on the outskirts of an old-fashioned town in the 60’s and `70s. He moves to Tel Aviv, the city of unlimited opportunities, where he can realize his sexual identity. From there he escapes to, of all places, Berlin, which both attracts and frightens him with its alien beauty, and where his feelings of isolation and alienation are especially intense. There he can also sometimes long for home – but there`s nothing nostalgic about Avni’s home and childhood. His descriptions of childhood are among the funniest and most grotesque to appear in Hebrew for years. Being different and alien is for Avni a mental condition, of which homosexuality is but one aspect.