About this item
Highlights
- A provocative and highly entertaining novel about a wedding day drama that presents a moving and humorous look at contemporary Israel and the chaotic ups and downs of love everywhere.
- About the Author: Ronit Matalon (1959-2017) was the author of nine novels and a liberal social activist.
- 128 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Literary
Description
About the Book
A provocative and highly entertaining novel about a wedding day drama that presents a moving and humorous look at contemporary Israel and the chaotic ups and downs of love everywhere.Book Synopsis
A provocative and highly entertaining novel about a wedding day drama that presents a moving and humorous look at contemporary Israel and the chaotic ups and downs of love everywhere.
Review Quotes
"Matalon's virtuosic novel opens in a standoff: A bride has barricaded herself in a room on her wedding day and will neither emerge nor explain ... The lightness of Matalon's tale belies its heft. In prose that is both abrupt and tender, she skewers the hydraulics of family and the insensitivities of those who think themselves exquisitely sensitive ... Matalon ... indicts us all."
-The New York Times Book Review
"A moral act ... The language is straightforward, breezy, conversational. And Jessica Cohen's translation makes it highly accessible ... All of it coheres. Confettied throughout the novel are Matalon's well-chosen details ... Parallels to Beckett are unavoidable."
--The New York Review of Books
"Reminiscent of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but Jewish, and backwards ... Family secrets bubble to the surface in this deeply felt comedy."
--Kirkus Reviews
"Matalon is a unique literary stylist whose pitch-perfect novel focuses on the spectacle of the big day ... Matalon nails how families relate to each other. Her scenes are cinematic and evocative ... A masterful rendering of a failed wedding day and the embedded failures that individuals, a family, and a culture accrue in the process of trying to manage their circumstances. As complex and chaotic as life."
--Foreword Reviews (Starred Review)
"Ronit Matalon was a giant of Israeli literature: not of the bombast of grand political statements, but rather a master of the private, the intimate, the ambivalent, the human. And the Bride Closed the Door invites us into a single revealing moment in a family's life, and we are right there in the room with them--or rather, right outside the door. It's funny, moving and deeply real."
--Dara Horn, author of Eternal Life
"The reader is gripped from the very first moment ... For readers who have never encountered Matalon, this very fast novel is an extremely accessible place to start, and an opportunity to begin to understand both Matalon's literary stature and the complexities of contemporary Israel."
--Aviya Kushner, author of The Grammar of God in The Forward
"A riotous satire of wedding-day jitters. Look deeper and it can also stand as a parable of a country divided, and most of all as an absurdist situation comedy of contemporary Israeli family life ... Elusive yet powerful, by turns laugh-out-loud funny and tragically sad."
--The Jewish Week
"One could tout the graces of Matalon's novella on a number of fronts. Its layered brand of humor--part slapstick, part wit--seeps in and out of darkness with bite, yielding a compact tragicomedy on love and loss."
--Asymptote
"Refreshingly audacious and stirringly sophisticated, And the Bride Closed the Door presents the reader with a sharp-edged piece of social and feminist critique, hidden by a veil of wit and humor. Jessica Cohen's masterful translation further enhances the rare and intricate voice of Ronit Matalon, one of Israel's leading female authors, whose sudden passing shocked and saddened lovers of Hebrew literature worldwide."
--Ruby Namdar, author of The Ruined House
"A triumph, at once humorous and profound, richly imagined and deliciously grotesque ... This book is a marvel, a stunning display of Matalon's virtuosity and an aching reminder of the tremendous void she left behind."
--Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Art of Leaving
"With seductive wit and light pathos, this brilliant novel makes the reader privy to the inner thoughts of a comically messy family. From there, bigger truths about personal life and the wider culture are exposed and explored."
About the Author
Ronit Matalon (1959-2017) was the author of nine novels and a liberal social activist. The daughter of Egyptian immigrants to Israel, she worked as a journalist for the newspaper Haaretz and reported from the West Bank and Gaza. Her last book, And the Bride Closed the Door, was awarded Israel's prestigious Brenner Prize the day before her death at age 58.Jessica Cohen shared the 2017 Man Booker International Prize with author David Grossman for her translation of A Horse Walks into a Bar. She has translated works by Amos Oz, Etgar Keret, Dorit Rabinyan, Ronit Matalon and Nir Baram.