Lis Harris was a staff writer at The New Yorker from 1970 to 1995. She is a professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University. In addition to innumerable articles, reviews and commentaries, she is the author of Holy Days- The World of a Hasidic Family, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Rules of Engagement- Four American Marriages, and Tilting at Mills- Green Dreams, Dirty Dealings and the Corporate Squeeze.
“Fair, evenhanded stories of what life is really like in the riven
state of Israel.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[A] distinctive account that shows the ongoing effects of the
conflict on generations. Readers interested in seeing beyond
stereotypes and political posturing will appreciate.”
—Library Journal
“That Harris could immerse herself in this world and come away with
a counter-narrative that overcomes the brutality, violence, and
pain, and tells the story with great nuance and complexity, is a
triumph of the power of stories and the perseverance of the
storyteller.”
—The Revealer
“Lis Harris’s epic and epically beautiful real-life tale about two
cultures, two religions, two families, trying to survive difference
in a shared world is a monumental work carved out of rock, truth,
and love. The deep and complex realities of Israeli/Palestinian
daily life has had no better observer and no more judicious
participant. A work for the ages.”
—Hilton Als, author of The Women
“Lis Harris has written about a conflict in which the members of
each side, acutely damaged by trauma, are so angry at the other
that they can’t listen. But Harris can. Wherever our sympathies
lie, we have something to learn from this intensively reported and
meticulously written account of two extended families who don’t so
much represent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as help us
understand its toxic effects.”
—Anne Fadiman, author of The Wine Lover’s Daughter
“In immersing herself so deeply in the complex lives and stories of
both Israelis and Palestinians, Lis Harris accomplishes something
extraordinary here: a moving and heartfelt account on a very human
scale of the intractable struggle of two peoples who share one
land. Harris allows us to feel the terrible price young and old on
both sides of this conflict continue to pay. And she does so with
great empathy and insight, in beautifully chiseled prose.”
—James Shapiro, author of A Year in the Life of William
Shakespeare
“The world should thank Lis Harris for this brave, skillful, and
generous-spirited work of reporting. The details of the two
families’ contrasting lives, so clearly and empathetically
observed, make for a page-turning story. Somehow—maybe because of
the author’s own faith in the transcendent humanity of her
subjects—the reader comes away with a feeling of hope.”
—Ian Frazier, author of Great Plains
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