The Drive

Assulin’s poignant if flawed debut follows an Israeli soldier’s struggles to deal with his “soul-crushing” time in the Israel Defense Forces. The unnamed soldier and his father drive from Haifa up the Coastal Highway for an appointment with the Mental Health Officer. As they travel, the soldier reflects on the circumstances that have led him to this point. Having been assigned to intelligence, the soldier hasn’t seen combat, but his reaction to the environment of the base causes him to feel like he is suffocating, and to contemplate hurting himself. He considers throwing himself in front of a vehicle or asking a friend to smash his hand in a car door, so he can have a long period of sick leave. While on base, the soldier finds comfort from reading the Psalms and regularly visits the synagogue, but his pain persists and he fails to articulate its causes to his superiors. While the slim, sketchy narrative suffers from a lack of details, Assulin shines at depicting the soldier’s feelings of unease and the irreconcilable space between soldier and commander (“the conversation evolved into a conversation between two deaf people”). This work on the fragility of the human spirit is touching, but it’s no Catch-22. (Apr.)