Three Floors Up [The Reasonable Person]
“What was I trying to do? Just protect my women,” Arnon Levanoni says heatedly to his friend, a successful writer. The two are in a restaurant, Arnon pouring out his heart and confessing his sins in a lengthy monologue. He is Israeli macho, aggressive and possessive, and his jealousy for his little daughter Ofri has made him lose control. When he becomes suspicious that his neighbor has sexually molested Ofri, he attacks him, and the man is hospitalized. But Arnon gets into more trouble – with the neighbor’s young granddaughter, who is now threatening to destroy Arnon’s marriage in revenge. Arnon and his family live in a quiet middle-class neighborhood. Above them lives Hani Doron, known as “the widow” – her husband is often away on business, and she lives shut-off with her two children. After her brother in-law, in trouble with loan sharks and the police, comes to hide out with her, their happy interlude together seem no more than a figment of her imagination. On the top floor lives a genuine widow: former judge Devorah Edelman, who dreams at night that her super ego is being amputated. Now retired, Devorah is trying to start a new life and joins a social protest movement. But can she reconnect with her estranged son? Will Hani Doron overcome her problems? Can Arnon save his marriage?
The three floors of the house in Nevo’s novel reflect the tripartite Freudian model of the id, the ego and the superego. With insight and humor, Nevo lays bare the failures and psychoses that underlie the placid surface of the Israeli bourgeoisie, and gives us a gripping novel.
- Languages
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English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Ukranian
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English
New York, Other Press, 2017;
Audio: Prince Frederick MD, Highbridge, 2017 -
French
Paris, Gallimard, 2018 -
German
Munich, dtv, 2018 -
Greek
Athens, Kastaniotis, 2017 -
Italian
Milan, Neri Pozza, 2017 -
Romanian
Bucharest, Humanitas, 2017 -
Spanish
Barcelona, Duomo, 2019 -
Russian
Moscow, Sinbad, 2019 -
Serbian
Zrenjanin, Agora, forthcoming -
Ukranian
Kharkiv, Folio, forthcoming
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| Title | Three Floors Up [The Reasonable Person] |
|---|---|
| Writer's Last Name | Nevo |
| Writer's First Name | Eshkol |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher (Hebrew) | Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan |
| No. Pages | 272pp. |
| Book title - Hebrew (phonetic) | Shalosh Komot |
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“Smart and absorbing… Nevo shows us life’s complexities in a thoroughly satisfying read.”
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“Jerusalem Post Nevo (Neuland, 2014, etc.) is a bestselling Israeli author, and his most recent book to be translated into English makes it easy to understand why. His writing is compelling...[he] is a funny, engaging writer.”
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“This novel’s simple, flowing and engrossing language enables its complex theme to reach many readers, because there is something very accessible about it … Nevo demonstrates integrity and courage in this book.”
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“There’s a rare degree of daring, even self-exposure in the novel … [it] deals with the dark aspects of Israeli parenthood … Nevo abstains from reliance on the sensationalist aspect of the stories that he unfolds … Precisely through his sweetness he is capable of trying silent voices, engulfed in loneliness, frustration and guilt, that should be made to speak, the time has come for them to be heard. ”
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“Three Floors Up by Israeli novelist Eshkol Nevo offers an intriguing and layered view into life in Tel Aviv. The novel centers on three families living on separate floors of an apartment building on the outskirts of the city. Through the lives and interwoven stories of the three families, Nevo presents a broad and complex portrait of Israeli society.”