My First Sony

Funny, bittersweet and often shocking, the story of 10-year-old Yotam’s family unfolds via the recordings Yotam made on a tape recorder he got from his father. For several years, the boy records the goings-on in his family, and through this medium the reader also observes a panorama of Israel in the ‘80s, with all its political extremes. Yotam’s architect mother is a leftist, born in Argentina, a vociferous supporter of the Peace Now movement; his father, a mediocre playwright, is too busy cheating on his wife and promoting his reputation as a womanizer to have consistent political views. In addition, there are Yotam’s older brother and younger sister, two crazy aunts, right-wing religious uncles, four grandparents and more. But My First Sony is not simply a mirror of contemporary Israeli society. Yotam’s tapes monitor the gradual dissolution of his parents’ unhappy marriage, and the rhythms of the family dance, carried out over several generations.