The Executionerʹs Visit

The novel focuses on the disintegration of the family unit, the death of love and the ruin of the institution of marriage. Daniel, Noya and Yair’s thirteen year old son tells the story in an original way. Talented, bright and blessed with an active imagination, Daniel is also a very frightened child, almost hysterical. The demise of his family and his mother’s troubles shatter him. His teacher has assigned a history paper on the national tragedy the Jewish people suffered following the destruction of the First Temple in the sixth century BCE, but Daniel has other things on his mind. Daniel chooses to write about the destruction of his own household — enlisting the national trauma, the mythical division of the Jewish people forced into exile — to express the enormity of his own family tragedy. Daniel loves and supports his mother in her battle against his father, an overbearing, unfeeling man who regularly ignores his family. Noya, both sensitive and creative, is a gifted photographer whose works have been successfully shown in international exhibitions. Daniel, who understands her better than anyone else, develops a father-like relationship with her. He knows that she cannot live without love and he monitors her emotional decline with great anxiety. Noya, dubbing her suitors “executioners,” fosters her death wish and ends up hospitalized. Her son comes to the rescue. He is the saving angel, the carrier of tidings of appeasement, of the promise of his father’s love for his mother. Noya and her husband return home together, and Daniel knows that now he has a chance of growing up normal.