Light Fell

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award for Fiction
Winner of the Publishing Triangle's Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction


Twenty years have passed since literature professor Joseph Licht left behind his entire life—his wife, Rebecca; his five sons; his father; and the religious Israeli farming community where he grew up—when he fell in love with a man, the brilliant and charismatic rabbi Yoel Rosenzweig. Their affair is long over, but its echoes continue to reverberate through the lives of Joseph, Rebecca, and their sons in ways that none of them could have predicted.

Now, for his fiftieth birthday, Joseph is preparing to have his five sons and the daughter-in-law he has never met spend the Sabbath with him in the Tel Aviv penthouse that he shares with a man, who is out of town that weekend. This will be the first time Joseph and all his sons will be together in nearly two decades.

The boys’ lives have taken widely varying paths. While some have become extremely religious, another is completely cosmopolitan and secular, and their feelings toward their father range from acceptance to bitter resentment. As they prepare for this reunion, Joseph, his sons, and even Rebecca, must confront what was, what is, and what could have been.

Evan Fallenberg is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and has lived in Israel since 1985, where he is a writer, teacher, and translator. His recent translations include novels by Batya Gur, Meir Shalev, and Ron Leshem. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and the Vermont College MFA program in creative writing. Light Fell is his first novel.