The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized). Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad. An entertaining and thought-provoking minor classic.Īn amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale. The story is intensely partisan, but it’s much more than a polemic, thanks to Habiby’s incisive satiric characterizations of true believers and extremists of all persuasions, and especially to an inspired framing device whereby Saeed, having finally escaped the madness of Mideast politics, tells his amazing story from a most unconventional perspective. Habiby’s Saeed, close kin to both Voltaire’s Candide (as this novel glancingly acknowledges) and Hasek’s “Good Soldier Schweik,” is a nondescript opportunist who becomes a paid informer for Israeli government officials-until the examples of a courageous namesake and his only son Walaa (a martyred freedom fighter) elevate him beyond his innate cowardice and ignorance.
A comic antihero’s unexpected transformation from wily survivor into principled man of his people is observed with ebullient wit and understated empathy in this famous 1974 novel by Habiby, a Palestinian Arab (1919–98) who lived in Israel and was elected to the Knesset.
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