To the End of the Land (Signed First Edition)

David Grossman

ISBN 10: 0307592979 / ISBN 13: 9780307592972

Published by Alfred A. Knopf (New York), 2010

About this Item

First edition. First printing. Hardbound. Very fine/very fine in all respects. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page (name only). A pristine unread copy, opened only for signing, purchased new. Comes with archival-quality mylar dust jacket protector. Translator: Jessica Cohen. Grossman, whose son was killed during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award for Fiction in 2011 for this novel. Obama took the book along for his summer vacation in August 2012. You cannot find a better copy. The author has signed the book on the title page, his name only, no other writing.

Seller Inventory # mfmold6

Bibliographic Details

• Title: To the End of the Land (Signed First Edition)
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (New York)
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0307592979
• ISBN 13: 9780307592972
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: New
• Dust Jacket Condition: New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

From one of Israel’s most acclaimed writers comes a novel of extraordinary power about family life—the greatest human drama—and the cost of war.

Ora, a middle-aged Israeli mother, is on the verge of celebrating her son Ofer’s release from army service when he returns to the front for a major offensive. In a fit of preemptive grief and magical thinking, she sets out for a hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the “notifiers” who might darken her door with the worst possible news. Recently estranged from her husband, Ilan, she drags along an unlikely companion: their former best friend and her former lover Avram, once a brilliant artistic spirit. Avram served in the army alongside Ilan when they were young, but their lives were forever changed one weekend when the two jokingly had Ora draw lots to see which of them would get the few days’ leave being offered by their commander—a chance act that sent Avram into Egpyt and the Yom Kippur War, where he was brutally tortured as POW. In the aftermath, a virtual hermit, he refused to keep in touch with the family and has never met the boy. Now, as Ora and Avram sleep out in the hills, ford rivers, and cross valleys, avoiding all news from the front, she gives him the gift of Ofer, word by word; she supplies the whole story of her motherhood, a retelling that keeps Ofer very much alive for Ora and for the reader, and opens Avram to human bonds undreamed of in his broken world. Their walk has a “war and peace” rhythm, as their conversation places the most hideous trials of war next to the joys and anguish of raising children. Never have we seen so clearly the reality and surreality of daily life in Israel, the currents of ambivalence about war within one household, and the burdens that fall on each generation anew.

Grossman’s rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great antiwar novels of our time.

About the Author

David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous works of fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature. His work has appeared in The New Yorker and has been translated into thirty languages around the world. He is the recipient of many prizes, including the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany, Rome’s Premio per la Pace e l’Azione Umitaria, the Premio Ischia— International Award for Journalism, Israel’s Emet Prize, and the Albatross Prize given by the Günter Grass Foundation.