The Inbetween People

"I am writing this for you, Saleem. I am writing about us, about how I loved you and how I killed you," Avi Goldberg writes at the beginning of McEvoy's sentimental debut. At 25, Avi is a military prisoner, having refused to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces during the second intifada. Avi passes time by writing down the story of his meeting and his friendship with Saleem, an Israeli Arab, whose family lost its home in 1948 and whose life is thus shaped by forces outside his control. Addressing Saleem in the second person as he tries to reconstruct Saleem's childhood and to relay his attempts to escape the inexorable demands of his country's violent past and present, Avi also grapples with the increasingly desperate pleas of Sahar, Saleem's widow, to help her escape an arranged marriage. He also mines his own past, particularly the mother who abandoned him when he was a young boy. The converging stories suffer from improbable coincidence and characters who are too saintly, making for a debut that is both overcomplicated and oversimplified. (Jan.)