The Burrow

The Burrow is a psychological novel, and as in Lapid`s previous novels, the readers are required to exercise their brains in order to decipher the hints contained in the exciting plot and to solve a quasi-detective riddle. The solution that awaits them at the end is highly elusive this time. This book undoubtedly deserves go be reread immediately after the first reading.

The plot consists of letters from Avshalom to his younger brother, Yishai, in which he tells him about his life, and reveals his most intimate secrets and plans. However, these letters never reach the younger brother, whose whereabouts are unknown, and in the end they fall into the hands of a publisher, who decides to publish them. They were written in a dilapidated hut in a remote settlement, where Avshalom was living in order to write a novel. The novel will never be written, and instead Avshalom enters into relationships with three local women and occupies himself at night with digging a burrow in order to infiltrate the adjacent jail and kill one of the inmates. The planned murder is not only an act of personal revenge, but also an attempt to rescue the authentic Israeli identity, which is at risk, as Avshalom knows only too well from personal experience. He and his brother were uprooted from the secular milieu into which they were born, and were raised in one of Jerusalem`s ultra-orthodox neighborhoods, under the dominion of a fanatical stepfather. When they grew up, they left Jerusalem and reverted to their secular lifestyle, but something went wrong. The younger brother broke down and tried to return to the bosom of Orthodox Jewry. Through his letters, Avshalom tries to communicate with his lost brother, but what is the meaning of the burrow he is digging and his crazy scheme of revenge, which are reminiscent of the plot of The Count of Monte Christo? Perhaps the burrow does not even exist except in Avshalom`s mind, and perhaps his brother exists only in memory, since Avshalom is his brother`s killer.