One Night, Markovitch

One Night, Markovitch by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is the story of two arranged marriages of convenience, of Israeli men during World War II marrying European women to save them from the horrors of Nazi-Occupied Europe.

The main character, Yaakov Markovitch, is completely unremarkable. When he returns to Israel and finds himself married to the beautiful Bella Zeigerman, he becomes obsessed with her, and vows that he will make her love him. He refuses to grant her a divorce, and the emotional turmoil he causes her is made worse by the reality of history–of tragedy, war, secrets, and loss.

I keep a copy of this book near my desk at all times.

Not because the story is brilliant (it absolutely is) or the cover is beautiful (it truly is), but because reading Gundar-Goshen’s work gives me creative freedom. Her voice is distinct, her view on the world unapologetic and uncompromising.

Jami Attenberg wrote in her newsletter recently that she likes to start her writing day with reading. She reads a book from someone she admires, or that relates to what she’s writing. I loved that advice. What better way to enter through the gates of storytelling than with another well crafted book?

I’ve started to do the same thing (it at least gives me a few extra minutes to be cozy in bed before I get to my desk). I’ve tried different books, but one book I always come back to is One Night, Markovitch. If I want to access the best version of my writing voice, I read a passage from her book, and it’s like a key that unlocks my best writing persona.

There is something about the way Ayelet Gundar-Goshen can puppeteer a cast of complex characters that I have admired since the first time I picked up the paperback of One Night, Markovitch.

Perhaps it is her psychology background, but Gundar-Goshen’s characters take actions that are absolutely repulsive to an outsider view. Yet, when she writes from their perspective, it is easy to empathize with a person that, had you had read about them in the news, you would have thrown the paper across the room in anger, calling them the absolute scum of the earth.

I love One Night, Markovitch because it’s the kind of book that reminds me why I write. It sweeps me away in an adventure, with characters I still think about that seem real and multilayered. The voice is funny but not so funny as to make it distracting, and the world is real and layered. Reality mixes with whiffs of magic in ways that are not distracting, but completely appealing to my magical-realism obsessed tastes, and like all her other books, the moral questions brought up are thought provoking and conversation inducing. This is a book worth the read–and in, my case, the reread.

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