The Wanting

A Novel

By: Michael Lavigne

Narrated by: Robert Fass, Cassandra Campbell, Neil Shah

From the author of Not Me, this powerful novel of an Israeli father and daughter brings to life a rich canvas of events and unexpected change in the aftermath of a suicide bombing.

In the captivating opening of this novel, the celebrated Russian-born modern architect Roman Guttman is injured in a bus bombing; his life and perceptions become heightened and disturbed, leading him on an ill-advised journey into the desert and Palestinian territory. Roman’s odyssey alternates with the vivacious, bittersweet diary of his 13-year-old daughter Anyusha - on her own perilous path, of which Roman is ignorant - and the startlingly alive observations of Amir, the young Palestinian who pushed the button and is now damned to watch the havoc he has wrought from a shaky beyond. Enriched also by flashbacks to the alluring, sad tale of Anyusha’s mother, a Russian refusenik who died for her beliefs, this novel becomes a poignant study of the costs of extremism, but it is most satisfying as a story of characters enmeshed in their imperfect love for one another and for the heartbreakingly complex world in which all such love is wrought.

©2013 Michael Lavigne (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc

Critic reviews

"Lavigne’s second novel confronts the moral questions surrounding religious extremism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…. [His] heartfelt examination offers what reportage never could: an intensely intimate and humane depiction of the forces that unite and powerfully divide this region and its people." ( Publishers Weekly)