Second Person Singular

Publisher Marketing: From one of the most important contemporary voices to emerge from the Middle East comes a gripping tale of love and betrayal, honesty and artifice, which asks whether it is possible to truly reinvent ourselves, to shed our old skin and start anew. "Second Person Singular" follows two men, a successful Arab criminal attorney and a social worker-turned-artist, whose lives intersect under the most curious of circumstances. The lawyer has a thriving practice in the Jewish part of Jerusalem, a large house, a Mercedes, speaks both Arabic and Hebrew, and is in love with his wife and two young children. In an effort to uphold his image as a sophisticated Israeli Arab, he often makes weekly visits to a local bookstore to pick up popular novels. On one fateful evening, he decides to buy a used copy of Tolstoy's "The Kreutzer Sonata," a book his wife once recommended. To his surprise, inside he finds a small white note, a love letter, in Arabic, in her handwriting. "I waited for you, but you didn't come. I hope everything's all right. I wanted to thank you for last night. It was wonderful. Call me tomorrow?" Consumed with suspicion and jealousy, the lawyer slips into a blind rage over the presumed betrayal. He first considers murder, revenge, then divorce, but when the initial sting of humiliation and hurt dissipates, he decides to hunt for the book's previous owner-a man named Yonatan, a man who is not easy to track down, whose identity is more complex than imagined, and whose life is more closely aligned with his own than expected. In the process of dredging up old ghosts and secrets, the lawyer tears the string that holds all of their lives together. Review Citations: Publishers Weekly 02/27/2012 pg. 60 (EAN 9780802120199, Hardcover) Booklist 03/01/2012 pg. 43 (EAN 9780802120199, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Library Journal 03/15/2012 pg. 104 (EAN 9780802120199, Hardcover) Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2012 (EAN 9780802120199, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 519 (EAN 9780802120199, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Kashua, Sayed Sayed Kashua was born in 1975 in the Galilee and now lives in Beit-Safafa, an Arab village within Jerusalem. He writes a column for the Ha aretz, Israel s most prestigious newspaper. His first novel, Dancing Arabs, was a San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. Contributor Bio:  Alexander, Elijah Elijah Alexander has worked professionally as an actor for over fifteen years. He has worked and lived in New York, where he performed in numerous productions, including the Tony Award winning play Metamorphoses. He worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company for two years and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for two seasons, as well as regionally at various other theaters. In Los Angeles, he has worked on critically acclaimed productions of Sleuth, produced by Garry Marshall, and other works. His film and television credits include Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Emily s Reasons Why Not, JAG, Summerland, So NoTORIous, and Guiding Light. He was the voice of Vayne Solidor in Final Fantasy XII and has done several commercial voiceovers. He is currently the voice of Kenmore and has narrated more than ten audiobooks, including James Jones acclaimed novel From Here to Eternity.