The Extras
The Extras
ISBN: 9780805010763
定价: 190.00
内容简介
The extras are Ezra Brenner and Maryam
"Halim, childhood friends whose paths
cross again on the set of a movie filming in
the Israeli desert. Soon they are falling in
love--and everything is falling apart, for
he is a Jew and she is"a contradiction in
terms; an Isracli Arab.
It is 1976. Since they last met, as hopeful,
awkward teenagers, Ezra has been blood-
icd by two wars and has lost sight of his
vocation, architecture. Maryam has seen her
brother killed and hcr family has moved
to the West Bank in a strained attempt m
rcassimilate. The,love story of thcsc two
cannot hclp but be as dramatic as the land-
scape, as complex as the politics, that sur-
rounds them.
But the already considerable obstacles are
compoundcd by two more--by two forces
directing their actions from behind the
scencs: Ezra s uncle, who has made him an
ambivalcnt informer on the nascent pcacc
movemeut; and Riad, a PLO operative who
is pressuring Maryam to commit herself to
the cause.
In the beaufful, schizophrenic, madden-
ing country that is Israd--a fihn that runs
backward and forward and seems to have no end--Maryam and Ezra struggle to find
their roles. A novel of people awakened
by love, buffeted by family, wounded by
tfistory, The Extras is rich, haunting, and
heartrending.
Wayne Karlin spent four years in the
marines and fought in Viemam. After the
war hc received his bachelor s and master s
degrees and became a reporter for the Gan-
nett newspapers, living in Israel for several
years. He currently teaches college in
Charles County, Maryland, where he lives
with his wife and son. He is the author of
two previous novels, Crossover ("Graceful,
almost poetic" San Diego Union) and Lost
Armies ("Where others overdcscribe and
label, Karlin uses words to cvoke people
and places. Where others use mundane lan-
guage, Karlin peppers his narrative with
poetic word portraits. Where others present
cardboard, one-dimensional characters,
Karlin draws complex, hard-to-classify
ones" Washington Post).