From Publishers Weekly
This tightly knit novel of political intrigue and romance by Wilson (Schoom) is set in 1924 in Palestine under the British mandate. English Jewish painter Mark Bloomberg has left London (where he was besieged by terrible reviews) for Jerusalem, hired by a Zionist organization to produce paintings of "Life Under Reconstruction Conditions. Progress. Enterprise. Development." He's there with his American wife, Joyce, a Protestant socialite who is more enthusiastic about Zionism than he is. At the opening of the novel, a man staggers into Mark's home and dies in his arms from a stab wound and recent beating. He's dressed-mysteriously-as an Arab, but is actually an Orthodox Jew, Jacob De Groot, a thorn in the side of the Zionists for his agitation against the formation of a Jewish state. His murder is investigated by Robert Kirsch, a 24-year-old British police captain who, like Mark, is a secular Jew, and the British governor, Sir Gerald Ross. Their main suspect is a 16-year-old Arab boy named Saud. Gerald doesn't know if he's guilty, but he's sure that if his case is publicized there will be riots. To prevent this, Ross commissions Mark to paint ancient structures in Jordan and sends Saud with him. There, Mark does his own detective work on the De Groot murder, and comes to a different conclusion. While Mark is away, Robert stumbles into an affair with Joyce, whose relationship with her husband is unraveling. The book has a deliberately inconclusive ending, but throughout Wilson draws a vivid picture of Jerusalem and its soon-to-become vicious political rivalries. Wilson is exceptionally attuned to the range of opinion and complex sense of identity of the Jews living in Palestine, as well as the subtle but potentially explosive tension that characterizes everyday interactions under colonial occupation.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
It is 1924 and the Zionist movement is beginning to gain momentum. Tensions run high between Jews and Palestinians and between Zionist and Orthodox Jews, and none of the groups quite trust the British, who have a mandate to rule the area. To this intrigue Wilson [The Hiding Room (1995)] has added the usual ingredients of a first-rate thriller-murder and gun-running as well as the introspective themes of a middle-aged artist whose career and marriage are on the down slope, his wife's own search for an "identity," and her lover's coming to terms with his. The result is that the book is not quite a mystery and not quite a thriller, but a period piece in which the historical moment is thoroughly saturated by the human element. The plot suffers a bit in that some of the characters you expect to play greater roles in the story don't, and some of the subplots just fizzle out. Still, the main story, with its theme of loyalty versus betrayal, is well written and carries the novel. Frank Caso
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“Like the best of historical fiction, Wilson’s story is placed in an imagined past, but it is really happening right now. . . . You’re likely to stay up late reading.” —The Washington Post Book World

“A fine novel. . . . Thrilling . . . startling. . . . Exquisitely spare prose.” —The Seattle Times

“An engrossing, complex, and fearless tale of politics, arts, murder, sex, and history (personal and global) set in the rough and tumble that was Palestine in 1924.” —Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent

“This rich novel . . . resonates with Hemingway’s harrowing work after World War I.” —The Christian Science Monitor

“A Palestine Affair is hard to put down. . . . [It] echoes its modernist predecessors: Forster’s A Passage to India, Conrad’s The Secret Agent, and James’s The Princess Casamassima.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“A story that tautens the sinuous strands of [the] period into a lethal knot.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A swift little mystery-romance. . . . Crisply written. . . . Wonderfully rich in period detail and atmosphere and wonderfuly free of polemic, side taking, or blame.” —Seattle Weekly

“Wilson is a talented writer with a gift for story, scene, and character.” —The Boston Globe

“Profoundly memorable. . . . Haunting. . . . A Palestine Affair is romantic, but darkly so, in the manner of The English Patient. . . . Wilson poetically evokes every aspect of Israel’s scenery.” —The Jerusalem Report

“Worth reading? An Englishman might say: ‘Rather.’ An American would put it differently: ‘You bet it is!’ ” —Saul Bellow

“Well-plotted, this is a dark, romantic thriller whose author has an amazingly keen eye for the landscapes his characters get lost in.” —Detroit Free Press

“Tightly knit. . . . Wilson is exceptionally attuned to the range of opinion and complex sense of identity of the Jews living in Palestine, as well as the subtle but potentially explosive tension that characterizes everyday interactions under colonial occupation.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Savvy. . . . Edgy. . . . Wilson excels at creating the atmosphere surrounding his story. He wears his research lightly but tellingly.” —The Jerusalem Post

“A Palestine Affair evokes, quite tangibly, the days of the Mandate. This is a true and touching act of the imagination. The book’s very sexy, a nostalgic and provocative envisioning of that time. I recommend it highly.” —David Mamet

“Gripping. . . . [A] moody, darkly romantic thriller with a haunting sense of place. . . . Wilson has always been a perceptive writer worth reading. . . . He has a grasp of period detail as deft and compelling as Alan Furst’s. . . . [A] deft portrait of 1920s Jerusalem and its diverse, bickering inhabitants.” —Forward

“Enchanting. . . . Wilson has populated his captivating novel with memorable characters. . . . It is a compelling and powerful story of love and politics.” —Abilene Reporter-News

“Cinematic. . . . Artfully written. . . . Intricate, closely stitched. . . . Wilson is a novelist with an eye for rich historical detail. . . . His writing is highly visual and tactile, with a painterly quality.” —The Jewish Week

“How rare to read a novel that moves with the velocity of a thriller and that is, at the same time, so splendidly written. The characters glow with persuasive life, and Wilson exquisitely evokes the land itself as it seethed under British rule—a place stamped by history but unformed, too; an older world that seems younger because of all the possibility in it. Wilson’s story of love and betrayal merges historical, political, and private passions to create a beautiful and timeless tale.” —Jonathan Rosen, author of The Talmud and the Internet

“Excellent and atmospheric. . . . It brings to life the fascinating complexities of the Land of Israel at one of the many significant junctures in its history.” —New Jersey Jewish News



Review
?Jonathan Wilson has written an engrossing, complex, and fearless tale of politics, art, murder, sex, and history (personal and global) set in the rough and tumble that was Palestine in 1924.?
?Anita Diamant, author of The Red Tent

?How rare to read a novel that moves with the velocity of a thriller and that is, at the same time, so splendidly written that even if there were no plot at all I'd have turned the pages with grateful anticipation. The characters glow with persuasive life, and Wilson exquisitely evokes the land itself as it seethed under British rule -- a place stamped by history but unformed, too; an older world that seems younger because of all the possibility in it. Wilson's story of love and betrayal merges historical, political and private passions to create a beautiful and timeless tale.?
?Jonathan Rosen, author of The Talmud and the Internet

??Worth reading? An Englishman might say: 'Rather.?
An American would put it differently: ?You bet it is!??
?Saul Bellow

?A Palestine Affair evokes, quite tangibly, the days of the Mandate. This is a true and touching act of the imagination. The book's very sexy, a nostalgic and provocative envisioning of that time. I recommend it highly."
?David Mamet


From the Hardcover edition.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
Wilson's thrilling novel is a Hitchcockian page-turner, detailing affairs both romantic and political in the exotic atmosphere of British-ruled Palestine in the 1920s. At the close of World War I, Mark Bloomberg and his feisty American wife, Joyce, leave London for an art commission in Palestine, hoping the new surroundings will revive their ailing marriage. A Cubist landscape painter, Mark is surprisingly well paid for his images of Jerusalem. Joyce, still struggling to find her own vocation, becomes enthralled with the tenets of Zionism.

Soon after they arrive, the Bloombergs witness the murder of a prominent political figure; the prime suspect is Saud, an Arab teenager believed to have been the victim's lover. Meanwhile, Joyce falls under the spell of the investigating officer, Robert Kirsch, and Mark relinquishes his hold on their marriage, accepting a commission in Petra. But Joyce begins socializing with ardent Zionists, and in her insatiable quest for adventure, she agrees to deliver munitions to those running the movement -- a choice that will seal not only her own fate but that of her estranged husband and of Kirsch.

A dramatic, tension-filled novel about the ripple effect of the choices we make, A Palestine Affair is a tale both universal and specific, from a perceptive writer who deserves a larger audience. Summer 2003 Selection

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This swift and sensual novel of passion and politics transports us to British Palestine, where the Arabs, the British, and the Jews mingle in a scene of colonial excess and unease. It is 1924, and Mark Bloomberg, a disillusioned London painter, arrives in Jerusalem to take up a propaganda commission. When he and his American wife, Joyce, accidentally witness the murder of a prominent Orthodox Jew near their cottage, they become embroiled in an investigation that will test their marriage and their characters. Joyce, an ardent Zionist, is pulled into an affair with Robert Kirsch, the British policeman investigating the case, while Bloomberg, transfixed by the desert light, attempts to capture on canvas the complex, shifting truths of the region.
Like Kirsch, whose brother was killed in France in 1918, all of the characters here have come to Palestine to escape the grief of the First World War, and are forced to confront their principles and their hearts in the midst of a culture in the throes of painful emergence.
Lushly detailed and compellingly cinematic, A Palestine Affair illuminates a lesser-known aspect of the history of the Middle East as it tells a powerful story in which love proves to be, ultimately, a force as strong as politics.

Author Biography: Jonathan Wilson is the author of a novel and a book of short stories. He is chair of the English Department at Tufts University and lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

SYNOPSIS

“A fine novel. . . . Thrilling . . . startling. . . . Exquisitely spare prose.” —The Seattle Times

The introduction, discussion questions, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your group’s reading of Jonathan Wilson’s A Palestine Affair, a dramatic novel of passion and politics in British-ruled Palestine of the 1920s.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Wilson has devised a story that tautens the sinuous strands of this period into a lethal knot. The strengths of his novel are the tension and pace of its plot, and its ability to suggest the falling barometer of a storm that will break fully only after another quarter century. — Richard Eder

The Washington Post

Like the best of historical fiction, Wilson's story is placed in an imagined past, but it is really happening right now. — Gershom Gorenberg

Publishers Weekly

This tightly knit novel of political intrigue and romance by Wilson (Schoom) is set in 1924 in Palestine under the British mandate. English Jewish painter Mark Bloomberg has left London (where he was besieged by terrible reviews) for Jerusalem, hired by a Zionist organization to produce paintings of "Life Under Reconstruction Conditions. Progress. Enterprise. Development." He's there with his American wife, Joyce, a Protestant socialite who is more enthusiastic about Zionism than he is. At the opening of the novel, a man staggers into Mark's home and dies in his arms from a stab wound and recent beating. He's dressed-mysteriously-as an Arab, but is actually an Orthodox Jew, Jacob De Groot, a thorn in the side of the Zionists for his agitation against the formation of a Jewish state. His murder is investigated by Robert Kirsch, a 24-year-old British police captain who, like Mark, is a secular Jew, and the British governor, Sir Gerald Ross. Their main suspect is a 16-year-old Arab boy named Saud. Gerald doesn't know if he's guilty, but he's sure that if his case is publicized there will be riots. To prevent this, Ross commissions Mark to paint ancient structures in Jordan and sends Saud with him. There, Mark does his own detective work on the De Groot murder, and comes to a different conclusion. While Mark is away, Robert stumbles into an affair with Joyce, whose relationship with her husband is unraveling. The book has a deliberately inconclusive ending, but throughout Wilson draws a vivid picture of Jerusalem and its soon-to-become vicious political rivalries. Wilson is exceptionally attuned to the range of opinion and complex sense of identity of the Jews living in Palestine, as well as the subtle but potentially explosive tension that characterizes everyday interactions under colonial occupation. (June) Forecast: The obvious political relevance of Wilson's subject should give this novel a well-deserved boost, and it should have crossover appeal for mystery readers looking for something a little off the beaten path. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Pre-Israel Palestine, which was partly featured in Wilson's The Hiding Room, is also the scene of his new novel. It is soon after World War I, and British-born painter Mark Bloomberg and his American-born wife, Joyce, have moved from London to Jerusalem. No sooner have they settled into their scenic and quiet Talpiot neighborhood when a middle-aged man dressed in Arab garb is killed on their doorstop. The police identify him as a prominent Orthodox Jew, and his murder is pinned on a young Arab boy. Mark and Joyce's marriage unravels, Mark goes off to Petra, Jordan, on a painting commission from the new British government with the Arab boy in tow, and Joyce has an affair with the young British police officer assigned to the murder case. Middle Eastern intrigue of the period, the colonial British, various love affairs, and Arab-Jewish conflict all loom large in this period novel. A fascinating read, this is a good frame for the current situation in the Middle East. Recommended for all libraries.-Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews