A handful of lives, not story lines
There are risks when writing about Israel and Palestine. In The Pale of Settlement,the risks are even greater when an American Jew tells the story.
By Gili Warsett
Published: January 9th, 2008 | 12:56pm
There are risks when writing about Israel and Palestine. The risks are even greater when an American Jew tells the story. The question of complicity and of our responsibility in the conflict is often such a looming eye of the hurricane that it can be tempting to seal the shutters and hide in a windowless room. And then there is the problem of writing fiction that does not slip into a political personal essay or a manifesto. Most of the time, Margot Singer sails high above the storm in her thoroughly researched, award-winning collection of linked short stories, The Pale of Settlement
Throughout the book, we are introduced to Israeli, Palestinian, and American characters with one woman, Susan Stern, an American Jewish journalist at the center. At times, I wished that Susan appeared as a more compelling character and not just a vacuum in which other people’s histories are stored. But this openness leaves room for Susan to empathize with others, which fits perfectly with her position as a journalist: “She’d envied their purposefulness, the sense of meaning she felt their lives must have.” The downside of this aimless wavering in a main character is that many of the stories feel inconclusive and loosely structured.
Each story is from either a different time period in Susan’s life, a historical account of her roots in Israel and in America, or scenarios about other members of her family. The narratives narrow in on anecdotes and scenes in which quiet conflict occurs. The stories meander, and pinning down a specific plotline is tricky, since Singer seems to resist typical short story structure.
In the title story, each section tells the tales of personal histories that are connected through Susan, who always has Israel and Palestine in her thoughts, but is also living as a single woman in New York. There is a disconnection that rises from this list of accounts. We learn that a lover of Susan’s has been diagnosed with cancer. Then, two sections later, she reveals that her grandmother died of cancer at an early age. There is never a moment of illumination in which it is clear why each narrative is running parallel to the next. Often, it feels as though Singer wants to tell a myriad of stories and hasn’t quite figured out how to relate them to each other. In the end, we have read a group of ponderous and rich anecdotes without a path to follow. We end up dizzy and lost and wondering what it was all about, but this works for the specific reason that these issues of identity and how politics figure into our personal stories is not a linear or simple story line. We are composed of our family’s choices and our own, and this is true on a micro and macro level. Singer gets that her subject must match her tone.
One element that sets Singer’s stories apart from other political works of fiction is her deftness with language. “She’d climbed down to the beach after dark with two of the boys to sneak a cigarette. It must have been a moonless night; she remembered the sound the waves made rising in the dark, their disembodied crash and hiss. The boys went swimming first, whooping and calling out. She stayed on the beach after they’d pulled their clothes back on and headed back up the bluff. Then she stubbed out her cigarette, undressed.”
The story is best when Singer lets her characters behave in surprising ways. Susan and her Israeli cousin, Gavi, a soldier who ends up joining a cult, develop romantic feelings for each other. Singer loosens her control on Susan and lets their relationship unfold. What’s appealing about these intimate moments is that they zoom in on personal conflicts affected by the larger political climate.
What results is a lyrical, thoughtful, never trite reflection on Israel and Palestine that has won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. The book is written with a large audience in mind, and there is enough historical background and explanation for anyone to follow along. Though I was never at the edge of my seat, or gripped by the characters, Singer must be credited with fiercely considering a controversial topic and remaining true to language.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
The Pale of Settlement
By Margot Singer
216 pages
List Price: $24.95
Issue #26
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