Michaela
Michaella is a couples counselor. She is beautiful, has three children, a good husband and a stable career. But her seemingly perfect life hides an entangled family, that she can neither escape nor forget.
Michaella and Rona’s father left when they were young, and their mother was committed to a psychiatric institution soon after, leaving the two small girls at their aunt’s. The sisters drift apart and grow up to be very different from one another: Michaella is successful, while Rona is disturbed, lost in alcoholism and drug abuse. Now, as a part of Rona’s rehabilitation, she moves in with Michaella’s family, trying to find a new stability in her life. But that doesn’t last long. Rona is attracted to a married man who comes to her sister for counseling, and starts an affair. Also, their mother is released into Michaella’s care, and the three share the same house again, after years of absence.
Mira Magen’s latest novel goes to the heart of the relationship between the two sisters. Their physical closeness creates an impossible mirror in its honesty, even cruelty as the two examine each other and their joint past.
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“Magen has created an amazingly credible character. Out of the non-existent and the negative, out of the ruins, a rounded character, complete despite its flaws, is made. It defiantly protests in a reasoned manner against the normal life, and it rips the mask off normality. This superb anti-heroism arises out of the ashes and declares: I am here despite you and your anger. Broken, alcoholic and an ex-junkie, you have no other choice but to accept my point of view, the story as I see it, despite the suspicion that I am not reliable. In the end, I am warning you, you will get used to me and perhaps, who knows, you’ll also love me, with all my shortcomings. ”