The painful and moving story of Aron Kleinfeld, the ringleader among the boys in his Jerusalem neighborhood. As his 12-year-old friends begin to mature, Aaron remains imprisoned in the body of a child for three long years. While Israel inches toward the Six-Day War, and his friends cross the boundary between childhood and adolescence, Aron remains in his child’s body, spying on the changes that adulthood wreaks as, like his hero Houdini, he struggles to escape the trap of growing up.

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Rights Sold:

Brazil, Companhia das Letras; China, Zhejiang Literature & Art; Croatia: Fraktura; Denmark, Gyldendal (reverted); Finland, Otava (reverted); France, Seuil; Germany, Hanser; Holland, Ambo; Israel, HaSifria HaHadasha/HaKibbutz HaMeuchad; Italy, Mondadori; Norway, Gyldendal (reverted); Romania, Univers; Spain, Random House Mondadori (Lumen); Sweden, Bonnier Alba (reverted);  UK, Jonathan Cape/Picador; USA, Farrar, Straus, Giroux

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Reviews:

“This stunning new novel belongs in the pantheon of great books...rich and dense, full of startling perceptions and dark, ironic wit.” – The New York Times Book Review

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“The writing reminds you of the great, solemn mystery of literature, what the poet Czeslaw Milosz calls “the human possibility of being someone else.” –  Chicago Tribune