Praise for Elisha Porat's short story collection,
Payback

Wind River Press, 2002
ISBN: (eBook) 0-9721513-0-3; (trade paperback) 0-9721513-2-X

Another masterpiece from one of the finest writers in Israel today. "Payback" is a collection of short stories revolving around a variety of complex themes. From war stories to relationship dramas, there is something for everyone in this collection.
      What sets Elisha apart from so many other writers is his willingness to expose the rawest emotions with a grace and dignity that honors the memories of the people upon whom his characters are based. Whether he is speaking of a friend who encouraged him to be a writer in "Payback" or the trials and tribulations of a flirtatious long lost love in "The High Glass Wall" Elisha speaks softly, but with a conviction that is palpable.
      So often my great disappointment with Israeli writers is they seem to avoid writing about Israel. They seem obsessed with making everything generic. Sure they are great stories, but when I read an Israeli writer I want to feel as if I am sitting in Israel. I want to sense that special something that only Israel has. Just as if I read say a Bolivian writer, I want to feel that special magic that one could truly appreciate only in Bolivia.
      That is what I enjoy so much about Elisha's stories. They show the full range of the worries, hope, fears and loves of everyday Israel both in times of war in and its devastating aftermath. There is a brutal honesty in its depiction of relationships between friends and lovers that shows both the fire and the compassion that make Israelis the dynamic nation they are. It is very difficult to pick a favorite story from the collection. There are elements in all of them that I enjoyed. From the adulterous lovers in search of meaning after chaos in "Beach Games" to the eccentric friend whose mental stability escapes him at a army crossroads on the way to war in Lebanon, they all exhibit characters who you come to feel a true bond with.
      An experience not to be missed, I encourage everyone to check out Payback. Look for Elisha's other short story collection "The Messiah of LaGuardia" as well.

—Kim Hegerberg

 

Writing in the first person, Elisha Porat electrifies the page in each of the twelve stories contained in this collection. Displaying the prowess of the journeyman journalist he introduces and sketches the characters of each story with such dexterity that they leap off the page and demand your attention. But he is not content to simply reveal his ability to sketch the characters of each story. The locale, circumstances, and descriptive language to draw you in are superb.
         Payback is a must-have for all who cherish good writing. This collection is a joy to read and definitely a book which will deserve a place of honor in any library.

—Doug Large
eBook Reviews Weekly

Praise for Elisha Porat's previous collection,
The Messiah of LaGuardia

Mosaic Press, 1997
ISBN: 0889626146

The Messiah of LaGuardia is a collection of six short stories originally written in Hebrew and now published in a competent English translation. Although the author, a recipient of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, has published over a dozen volumes of poetry and prose, this is his first short-story collection to appear in English translation. Reviews of the original Hebrew version have been appropriately favorable, describing the contents as "six stories in the best of the realist tradition…. It is apparent at first glance, however, that Elisha Porat has set out to do more…elegant, purposeful writing."
      Similarly, it is opined, these stories "will intrigue and touch the heart of every reader." In its English version too the volume is the setting of six gems: well-crafted, polished, beautifully evocative stories that testify to the author's mastery of his craft.
      It was back in 1924 that Jacob Rabinowitz envisioned the development of Hebrew literature within the context of a modern culture in the making: "Literature will be different here, that is to say, it will not be Jewish in the conventional sense, but rather humanistic, encompassing many genres and shades. Even its Jewishness will be different, as befitting a Jewishness adapting itself to life here, and deriving from it. There will be negative manifestations as well, so that here and there will be constriction and retreat.
      “The base will broaden, the back will ache. Neither exultation nor bitterness is warranted: one must merely observe and understand." It could be no different, of course, because amazing cultural phenomena were in the borning, foremost among them being the creation of a language: modern, spoken Hebrew. This involved the conversion of an ancient written language from a sacred to a literary idiom, thence to a spoken language again, and from a spoken, contemporary language once more into the language of modern writing. The vocabulary, syntax, and structure of the language itself witness to the network of cultural and social—as well as linguistic—components of which it is fabricated.
      Needless to say, Israeli authors did not create a literary culture ex nihilo: they brought their foreign and their Jewish substance with them, essences often in constant tension with their new circumstances and new lives. These writers gave artistic realization to the new realities in the new space they now occupied, with a love of the soil, the dignity of labor, the ideal of common weal, and the yearning for peace. Authentic Israeli culture, of which Porat's writing is indisputably a significant part, is the product of wrestling with manifold personal and societal tensions, fears, confusions, and doubts, not the escape from them.
      The term realism best describes Porat's posture, and his characters and plots reflect the realities of today's Israel and today's Israelis. For there exist decided sociological limits to the length of time that collective enthusiasms and ideals can be sustained as a central societal reality. The dream and struggle for a national revival and the excitement of creating a state and a society cannot be sustained indefinitely. And underpinning today's Israel is a growing sense of closure or completion in terms of the creative, heroic aspects of life: the state exists, the country is relatively secure, and the time seems propitious to cultivate one's own garden and to pursue individual paths to fulfillment.
      In "The Messiah of LaGuardia" one meets a simple auto-body worker and reserve soldier who tries to save his country from itself. "At the Little Bridge Below Ufana" presents a poignant love triangle complicated by the mysterious military death of the husband. "The Three Stages of Perfection" portrays the efforts of a commune (kibbutz) member to enthuse his comrades with his own quixotic idealism. The protagonist in "The Guardian of the Fields" finds brief happiness with a foreign woman yet cannot transcend the traumas of his East European childhood and Israel combat youth. The principal figure in "The Farming Instructor" struggles to keep both his wife and his land. And "the aging poet" in the story of that same title behaves, alas, as so many of us do, and must reconsider and accept the realities.
     In sum, brevitatis causa, Porat's collection of stories is engaging, poignant, sensitive, thought-provoking writing.

—Etan Levine, University of Haifa
Reprinted courtesy of World Literature in Review

Over the last three years I have read over a dozen of Elisha Porat's stories. The depth of his realism is akin to that of American novelist Henry James. Porat shows James' concerns for what lies beneath the human surface, through an intense interaction with character behavior and its underlying motivations. Yet what Porat contributes through his own particular style is a certain freshness and pungency, offsetting much that is plainly languid in today's market of so-called 'literature'.
      Moreover, the complexity of his stories with their psychologically compelling narratives make Porat's fiction eminently viable to our dangerous modern age. Running the gamut from soldiers to deceivers, false messiahs to ghosts, Porat is more than suited to the intricate themes he handles, bringing readers into unseen worlds, allowing them to view life from expanded parameters. There is nothing predictable in his plots.
      Elisha Porat is an enthralling writer, and the haunting portrayals one finds in his fiction also run throughout his equally excellent poetry. He deserves a much wider reading, to be on the forefront of literature, not relegated to the background, underground, or some musty bookshelf in a university. His literature is the kind that will endure. Alan Sacks has done English readers a great service through this high-quality translation. Porat comes with my highest recommendation.

—Jeffrey Alfier