The Lover by Abraham B. Yehoshua is his first foray into the novel genre. He places this story, like other, in his homeland -- Israel. Gabriel is an Israel ex-pat who reluctantly returns home to dispose of his grandmother's estate, but when he arrives she's in a coma, not dead. Eager to return home, he has to pass the time, so he works for a mechanic and his wife as a translator. Adam, the mechanic, and his wife, Asya, welcome Gabriel into their home, and in Asya's case into their bed. When Gabriel disappears shortly after enlisting for the draft because of the Yom Kippur War, Adam takes it upon himself to enlist some help and track down his friend.
The relationships between characters are where the real beauty of this novel lie. Unlike Adam and Asya, Gabriel detests being in Israel. For him the place is full of unpleasant memories. Not all is as it appears on the surface, however. Adam and Asya lost their eldest child a few years back in a car accident. After that incident they never reconnected as a couple. At some point Adam even wonder why they stayed together. As parents, they largely ignore Dafi's emotions, which she give full vent to at school where she's often in trouble. While the adults drift farther and farther apart from one another, the young people -- Dafi and Na'im -- manage to establish a genuine connection for which they risk home, job, expulsion, and exile.
Another interesting thread to follow through this narrative is the relationship of the people to their heritage. Gabriel, in all his hatred for Jewish culture and its various trappings, is only bested by his grandmother, Veducha whose entire life is enmeshed in cultural trappings. Just as Gabriel is brought irresistibly back to this country, Veducha awakens from her coma to her worst nightmare -- she is now the ward of young Na'im, an Arab. Cultural prejudice prevents both grandson and grandmother from realizing their potential and moving forward in life, but they are both forced to wrestle with these prejudices.
