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THE RED BALCONY

Jonathan Wilson

A gripping historical novel of sex, love, and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandate Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A PALESTINE AFFAIR.
In 1933, Ivor Castle, an Oxford-educated Jew, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel for the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a figure whose tactics to get Jews out of Hitler's Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed. Ivor, an innocent to the politics of the case, falls into bed and deeply in love with Tsiona, a free-spirited painter who sketched the accused men in a Jerusalem cafe on the night of the murder and may be a key witness. As Ivor learns the hard way about the violence simmering just under the lid of British colonial rule, Wilson dazzles with his mastery of the sun-baked scenery and the subtleties of the warring agendas in Palestine. Ivor moves between the crime scene in Tel Aviv and the maze of Jerusalem, between the mounting mysteries around this notorious legal case and clandestine lovemaking in Tsiona's tiny studio in Safed. In the end, he must discover where his heart lies - whether he cares more for the law or the truth, whether he is an Englishman or a Jew, with whom and where he belongs. JONATHAN WILSON is the author of eight previous books, including the novels The Hiding Room, runner up for the JQ Wingate Prize, and A Palestine Affair, a New York Times Notable Book, and runner up for the 2004 National Jewish Book Award; two collections of short stories, Schoom and An Ambulance Is on the Way: Stories of Men in Trouble; and the soccer memoir Kick and Run. His fiction, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, ARTnews, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Tablet, The Times Literary Supplement, and the Best American Short Stories, among other publications. Wilson has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and his work has been translated into many languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese. He lives in Newton, MA.
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Published 2023-02-21 by Schocken Books

Comments

Wilson (The Hiding Room) illuminates life in Palestine under the British Mandate in this engrossing legal drama [...] Historical fiction fans are in for a treat. Read more...

A sizzling tale of murder, high politics, sex and betrayal. Read more...

Jonathan Wilson's beautifully paced Palestine novel kept me reading through the night... THE RED BALCONY extends Wilson's previous novels set in the region, this time through the story of what is arguably Israel's foundational murder trial - a tale of multiple identities and loyalties that casts a shadow over the future State even while providing an eye-widening view of its author's bright and fully ripened achievement.

A seductive historical novel set in Palestine that reimagines the investigation of the notorious murder of Haim Arlosoroff. And if you want to understand the current Arab-Jewish conflict as well as the ideological division tearing apart Israeli society - why, for example, about 100,000 people in Jerusalem just protested Benjamin Netanyahu's new far-right government - THE RED BALCONY is an entertaining place to start... THE RED BALCONY is delightful for bringing the undeniable mystical tinge of that beautiful landscape to life. Read more...

...smart, fast-paced novel... Wilson maintains the suspense of the trial's outcome until his atmospheric story's concluding pages, but there's much more to engage the reader before this mature work reaches its end. Morality and passion collide in a sophisticated legal thriller.

Jonathan Wilson is among the finest writers working today in America. He is spectacularly witty and wise, deeply generous and intelligent - and his latest novel, THE RED BALCONY, is extraordinary. Intimate and epic, character-driven and a flat-out page-turner, the book manages to be a work of meticulously investigated historical fiction that never feels weighed down by its research. What's more, THE RED BALCONY is enviably prescient. In short, this is one of the best books I've read in years - not surprising from a writer who has published a long line of unforgettable books. I can't stop thinking about this book. A gorgeous new novel by one of our very best writers.