Lily la Tigresse

There are strange happenings in this novel, which is both fantastic and comic, yet contains serious feminist messages. Lily is a young woman who lives in Tel Aviv, and weighs more than 100 kilograms. Nevertheless, she proud of her body. She pampers it and prepares it for the great love of her life who, she believes, is due to arrive at any moment. She works as a dental hygienist for a dentist, who ostensibly exploits her sexually, but Lily knows that she is the stronger of the two and that he is entirely under her thumb. She is an independent woman who lives alone, unlike her good friend, Ninosh, who is in thrall to Leon, a rich Jew from Miami. Leon, who made his fortune from cellulite-dissolving panties for women, is a jealous tyrant who abuses Ninosh and beats her. The third female figure in the story is Michaela, a rough taxi driver, warmhearted and “masculine” in character, who is divorced with five children. Lily finds out that a Japanese man who relieved her of her virginity when she was eighteen is staying in a luxury Tel Aviv hotel. She feels she must see him, and Michaela drives her to the hotel. The handsome and unforgettable Taro is now in charge of the jungle beasts in a circus, and when he strips off his underpants, Lily makes an even more astonishing discovery: Taro has undergone a sex-change operation, and is proud of his ability to create and shape his body at will. As a parting gift, he gives Lily a tiger cub, and the three women raise it devotedly. However, Taro gives Lily something else as well: she metamorphoses into a tigress – a strong, limber, and liberated animal. Lily takes revenge on both the dentist and Leon, whom she tears to pieces, and now nothing is left for her to do but to cut herself off completely from human company. The loyal Michaela drives her to the desert.