Assaf Gavron's 2010 novel “Almost Dead” does something I would have thought impossible — it makes satire out of terrorism. The story of a man who becomes an Israeli national hero after surviving three attacks in a single week, the book offers a sharply ironic look at the intersection of image and reality.
This character is no role model; he's a guy in the wrong place at the right time. Gavron, who was born near Jerusalem and lives in Tel Aviv, is suggesting that we are all of us (citizens, nations, even, to some extent, terrorists) making it up as we go along.
A similar sensibility centers “The Hilltop,” Gavron's seventh book, although only the second (after “Almost Dead”) to appear in the United States. A sprawling novel that revolves around a small settlement in the occupied territories, its focus is less satirical than absurdist, offering a middle vision between the ridiculous and the sublime.
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