HOUSEBROKEN: Three Novellas

From an Israeli humor columnist comes a somewhat bleak trio of tales dissecting failed relationships, with zealous attention to detail. In the title story, exhibits A through D are "the woman," "the man," "the dog" and their uneasy attempt at cohabitation. Since little is revealed about what brought them together (or why they persist, for that matter), the tracking of every power shift, mood swing and cruelty is an unsatisfying exercise: it's never made clear what's at stake. More engaging is "The Happiness Game," in which diffident Ph.D. student Maya becomes entangled in her elderly parents' impulsive divorce, played out in comic, often touching counterpoint to Maya's own relationship with Nathan, a man even more aloof than herself. This story contains some strong writing and fully imagined characters, like Maya's intolerably optimistic friend Noga, who explains, "For men, brains and sadness are a lethal combination," and Maya's mother, whose mixture of helplessness and pluck is finely portrayed. The story is marred slightly by some heavy-handed symbolism that diminishes the real-life, real-people appeal. Rounding out the collection is "Matti," a composite portrait of a man dying of brain cancer, told alternately by his wife, Mira, and by Alona, the teenage girl Matti once loved. The story's shifts in perspective are effective, except in the final section, in which Mira and Alona's voices dovetail ("Are you okay? I asked. Yes, I said, but maybe I'll go have another cigarette first..."). Readers with a taste for existential angst will be the likeliest audience for these stories. (June 5)

Forecast:First published in Israel in 1997, Housebroken has also been translated into Dutch, French, German and Italian—but may be a hard sell this side of the Atlantic.