Hemda Horovitz is likely living her final days in a Jerusalem hospital. Her two children visit her, but it is memories of the past that accompany every gesture, every detail on the threshold of death. There is, for example, the image of that lake.
Hemda Horovitz is likely living her final days in a Jerusalem hospital. Her two children visit her, but it is memories of the past that accompany every gesture, every detail, on the threshold of death. For example, the image of the lake near the kibbutz where Hemda was born still powerfully imprints itself on her consciousness. The more painful traces of her long life also seep into her memory, unable to escape them: her overly demanding father, a loveless marriage, and then the difficulty of loving her two children, Avner and Dina, equally. The latter two have been spending a great deal of time with their mother since her hospitalization. Avner, the beloved son, meets a woman who has come to say goodbye to her dying husband and begins a strange relationship with her. As for Dina, the unloved daughter, she doesn't know how to cope with being separated from her own daughter, for whom she sacrificed her career. Overwhelmed by the need to give this love to someone, she decides to adopt, against all odds. Her unwavering desire to strengthen her family by welcoming another child threatens to tear it apart. Zeruya Shalev speaks like no other about the mysterious bonds that form between parents and children. In powerful prose, she evokes the anger, resentment, frustration, and fear that shape families as much as the love and joy of being together. What Remains of Our Lives is undoubtedly her most captivating novel.
