Milano Square

Ilana, a wealthy widow, becomes involved in a passionate romance with​ the male Arab nurse who took care of her husband in the last months of his life. She finds in Mahmid, some twenty years her junior, everything she missed in her husband: a poet’s soul, tenderness and empathy, and a powerful physical attraction. But Ilana’s sons are suspicious of Mahmid’s intentions and stop at nothing to disrupt the relationship, which they believe is harming the family’s good name. They even threaten to dispossess and evict her from her apartment, overlooking Milano Square in upscale north Tel Aviv.

Only Dusha, Ilana’s crazy, non-conformist sisterin- law, is on her side. Ilana is determined to maintain her impossible romance, despite the prejudice she confronts on all sides, her son’s tricks, and the surprising secrets she discovers. The plot is suspenseful, packed with twists and turns, and constantly collides with the reader’s expectations—as when skeletons, real and imagined, are discovered in Mahmid’s closet, including relationships with other women. Yet every time Ilana thinks that love triumphs at last, something new pops up to remind the couple of the gap that separates them.

Milano Square is an unusual book on the Israeli literary scene. Its clever political allegory is woven into a delightful love story, undermining all that we thought we knew about relations in Israeli society, and how to write about them in a divided, torn society.