This has been in my NetGalley queue for far too long. The moment I started reading, I regretted not getting to it sooner. It's a dynamic, complex, and frustrating tale of morality and consequences in a place filled with conflict. The story centers around Eitan, an Israeli doctor who accidentally hits an Eritrean man with his car. Recognizing that there was nothing he could do that would save the man's life, he left the scene with the man left to die on the road. The man's wife, Sirkit, shows up at this house the next morning, shocking him as he thought he had escaped without being seen. She holds up his wallet, and with that, she changes the trajectory of his life and hers.

This was an interesting book. It was filled with character complexity, and plot shifts, and the author plays with your sense of expectations with late reveals that indicate much more was happening than was originally known. It's a difficult book that seems to be about right and wrong, but the complexity grows as the book continues. The desperation of the characters was palpable and the tension high. It led to a steady drumbeat of the narrative, which kept me engaged even when I felt points to be implausible. While there is a repetitive nature in some sections, it speaks to the way the characters keep rushing forward rather than dealing with the traumas already handed to them, piling more on with each subsequent unwise decision or unlucky turn of events.

Overall, I would say it's a compelling read that while it didn't always satisfy me, it did leave me with a good amount to think about. It would make a remarkable book club novel as the discussions could be rich!

What a riveting read!
The book encompasses so much. Eitan Green, a successful neurosurgeon, accidentally hits and kills a man, and then speeds off. However, the dead man's wife learns his identity and presents quite a quid-pro-quo. The dilemma begins.
The author is a brilliant writer and I found myself caught up in every aspect of the situation, Responsibility and lack-thereof resonate throughout the book as does guilt and conscience. As I was reading, the tension kept building and building and it was hard to put aside thinking about the book.

Ayelet Gunnar-Goshen has written an intriguing, yet disquieting novel that makes us look at our feelings of self importance, prejudice and inner moral fiber. It makes the reader think, what would I do in this situation?

Eitan Green is a neurosurgeon, who has relocated from a prestigious Tel Aviv hospital because of a disagreement with the head doctor. Ironically it is Eitan’s ethical conscience that leads to his transfer to the outpost of a hospital in Beersheba. One night shortly after transferring, still angry at this change in his career plans, he is driving through the desert on his way home from work. When he takes his eyes off the road for a moment and hits a man walking along the side of the road. In a moment of panic, as he gets out and looks at the man laying on the road, he makes a choice to save the life he knows, with his wife and two young sons, leaving the scene of the accident.

Seen only by the widow, Sikrit, who then comes and blackmails the doctor not for money but for medical care for the people who live in the Eritrean neighborhood of illegal immigrants from northeast Africa.

At first Eitan sees all these sick and injured illegals as one and the same, but over time he grows to realize his prejudice and see not only the patients but Sikrit for who they are beyond their skin color.

His wife, ironically, is the police detective assigned to the case of the hit and run driver. As the story unfolds there is a sense of suspense that I found unnerving. It kept me on the edge of my seat, as I waited for the happy family life that Eitan and his wife, Liat have built with their young sons to unravel.

This is a psychological tale of suspense that examines the refugee crisis, through a collision of cultures. Every character, as the plot reveals, has a complicated relationship to the story. No one is completely innocent.

This novel explores a side of Israel society little talked about in the west. This is a novel of raw disturbing exploration of the high price of walking away. It could be from the scene of an accident or from the crisis of prejudice in Israel or in America.

A young doctor accidentally his a man with his car. He thinks he has killed him, but when he gets out to check, finds the man barely clinging to life. The man is a refuge. In his panic, the doctor runs away. The victim's wife shows up with an challenging demand for her silence. And so begins a relationship between the two that ultimately changes both their lives.

I have mixed emotions about this book. The premise was very interesting. There was some suspense. This did open my eyes to the plight of refuges that we don't ever hear about in the news. My only issue is that I felt the author strayed from the main storyline too frequently. I get the impression this had to do with character development so we could get a better understanding of who these people were and what happened in their pasts to make them who they are today. Eventually I found myself wanting more of the main story and less of the digression.

I received this as an ARC from Little Brown and Company via Netgalley.

I actually finished his book several weeks ago but it presented me with quite a conundrum. I continually wavered in my thoughts, my rating and what to say in my review. There is no doubt that this is an important book, a brilliantly written one, but the book is so dense, slowly paced and one I didn't mind putting down. I never considered not finishing it though, as it is written about refugees in the country of Israel, and I never realized they were having their own refugee crisis.

On the surface it is about a good man, a doctor, a healer, who makes a terrible mistake which costs him dearly. After leaving the hospital one night, letting off steam he races down a dark road and hits and kills a man, he didn't see. Knowing the terrible cost to his life, he leaves the man, an African, and returns home. This will bring Sirkit into his life, the dead man's wife, who will blackmail him into providing medical care to other illegal African refugees,

This is about one man's awakening to the problems in his own country, the plight of these refugees, with few resources, no access to even basic care and the routes they take to earn a living. It will put him in danger, and show him things he never thought to see. An indepth and thorough view of a man in a moral crisis and the prejudice inherit in many countries confronted with refugees they do not want, nor care to acknowledge. Very grim, but eye opening. I guess every country has a share and opinion in this ongoing crisis. A good, worthy book that will provoke much thought and discussion.

WAKING LIONS
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen; translated by Sondra Silverstein
Little, Brown
ISBN: 978-0-316-39543-4
Hardcover
Fiction

What an amazing book this is, a story so wonderfully written and told. One might consider WAKING LIONS a crime novel, and while a crime is involved within its pages --- as we learn, a few of them, in fact --- the tale is so much broader that it cannot be jammed comfortably into any particular genre. Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, the author of this stunning piece, is a psychologist, short film screenwriter, and award-winning author in her native Israel. WAKING LIONS, her first work to be published in the United States, is a stunning introduction, with the translation by Sondra Silverstein from the Hebrew illuminating Gundar-Goshen’s wonderful prose.

Gundar-Goshen’s literary skill set would be enough by itself to make reading WAKING LIONS worthwhile, but the plotting and characterization in the book are unforgettable as well. Eitan Green is the tip of the spear in WAKING LIONS. He has a wonderful life on the surface, working as a neurosurgeon at a small Israeli hospital while living with Liat, his wife --- a police detective --- and children in a comfortable home. Green chafes inwardly, however. His transfer to the hospital was not voluntary and while life in a small town has its benefits (lack of traffic being one) Green misses the big city. His life is forever changed when, while driving home late one night after an extended hospital shift, his car hits and kills an African migrant. Green stops immediately, but after ascertaining that the victim’s injuries are mortal, continues driving home. His reasoning is that his family’s lives (and, of course, his own) shouldn’t be changed by his momentary and careless blunder. Green has no idea what the world has in store for him, however. Sirkit, his victim’s widow, appears at his home the next day, with the wallet which he accidentally left at the accident scene. Sirkit, in exchange for her silence, forces Green to run what becomes a clandestine medical clinic for refugees, one which he stocks by misappropriating supplies from his own hospital. Green is soon lying to everyone --- his wife, his hospital, his children --- but Sirkit, ironically enough, as he works two shifts (or more) several days a week to fulfill his official and unofficial obligations. Something has to give, and something eventually does, when Liat, who is assigned to investigate the hit and run death of the refugee, suddenly obtains a confession from someone who, as Green knows, could not have committed the crime. Liat, meanwhile, detects a change in her husband, and believes that he is being unfaithful, even as Green slowly finds himself, against all odds, being attracted to Sirkit. A major shift then takes place about halfway through WAKING LIONS, one which puts everyone’s actions, including Green’s, in a new light. The change has a ripple effect that continues outward through the story’s conclusion. Anything but a tragic ending seems all but inevitable in WAKING LIONS, and tragic it might be. For some, anyway. But not for everyone.

Anyone who loves the magic of the printed word --- paper, electronically, or otherwise --- should read WAKING LIONS. It is a dark story, full of cruelty greed and betrayal, but also shot through with redemption and perseverance. Gundar-Goshen has earned, and deserves, a worldwide audience and WAKING LIONS may well be the vehicle for that. Strongly recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2017, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

This was so good that I kept my husband posted on the plot and character developments as I read, because I started to tell him what the book was about and he kept asking for updates.

This was so good that I started a list of unfamiliar locations and terms so I could look them up for a deeper understanding of the story. And I never do that!

This was so good that I’m going to gush about it for like 15 more paragraphs.

I don’t like thrillers, and I hesitate to label this as a “thriller,” so can I call it a “thrilling-non-thriller”? Yeah? Okay, cool.

This one really caught me by surprise. I was interested in it because I’d never read a book translated from Hebrew before, and I’m trying to read more translated fiction in 2017. But when it came time to actually read it, I kept putting it off. (Maybe because it sounded sort of thriller-ish?) Clearly I’m a fool, because this book was nearly everything I look for in a novel. Moral dilemmas! Character studies! Fast moving plot! And more!

It’s not perfect, of course—sometimes the translation felt a bit off and I had to reread sentences to understand what the author’s trying to say. Sentences seemed to almost be missing, like the story would be a lot clearer at times if just a few extra words or another sentence was added to a paragraph. But that’s really my only complaint, and the language is otherwise beautiful and thoughtful. (I need a hard copy because this is a book to tab and underline.)

I feel like the books I read are normally either very plot-driven or slow character analyses. This was both! And it balanced beautifully. I was captivated by the story and fascinated by the characters Gundar-Goshen has fleshed out so well. This is one of those rare examples, in my opinion, of endlessly readable unlikeable characters.

I was certain that Gundar-Goshen would mess up the ending, because how can you finish a story like this? But she wrote the perfect ending. I’m in awe. I think this one will hold to multiple rereadings, too, so bonus!