The Sound of Many Tiny Feet Angrily Stomping the Face of the Earth

A young drifter from Tel Aviv goes traveling to Cracow, Berlin, Paris and other European cities—with his dog. But his wanderings don’t help him cope with how to live in a meaningless, disappointing world, and even less how to succeed with girls. Lonely, drunk and confused, he nonetheless tries to write a book about a friend who just got back from New York and is living off his parents. But this fails, just like his previous attempts to write about a promising, interesting young man. The second part of the novel focuses on a disgruntled article in which the narrator—a fictional Adam Coman—attacks Berlin as imagined by young ‘Tel Avivis’ who dream of fame and success. Coman mocks this apparently utopian city, and arouses a series of gut reactions, including an angry piece called “Critique of Pure Hatred” by a local critic. And this is only one stop in a grotesque story filled with confrontations and scandals, including Coman’s pathetic attempts to have sex with the opinionated Dafna. To her, he is “a miserable worm” and she rejects him with contempt. A trenchant, young novel by a new and intriguing voice.