Shai Aron

This is the story of a young man, BenHazar, who is searching to understand who his Israeli father Jochanan Cohen really was and to confirm for himself whether his father's radical beliefs and shadowy behavior had far reaching consequences on his family, friends and country. The novel explores relationships in such a unique way by creating stories within stories. BenHazar explains that he is going on his journey looking for links in the chain of his father's life. His journey begins after his father is mysteriously killed in a house fire while he is in his study destroying most of his precious books and important political papers. The circumstances are suspicious and BenHazar travels to many places including England, Greece and Hong Kong to speak with many people who knew his father and can help him uncover his father's past. It is through his journey that we get to know his father Jochanan and that Ben discovers both his parents and learns more about himself. He visits his father's friends, his relatives as well as his mother who has been institutionalized for 16 years and who he has rarely seen.

The author, Aron Shai succeeds in keeping the reader interested in the main character's exploits. In the final pages of the book, we are not surprised to learn of the odd behavior of BenHazar and we accept the conclusion that his father was indeed murdered. It takes great skill to keep the reader interested while creating such a complex tale and Shai is a master at this literary endeavor. He weaves together political intrigue, human foibles and personal chaos to create a clever plot. What is most impressive is that the unbelievable becomes believable in this story.

If you enjoy meeting strong characters, learning about history during wartime, and are drawn to psychological thrillers you will like this book. The author is constructing a story where he challenges human behavior during wartime and concludes that "Between arrogance and humiliation there can never be peace. " The book ends on a postive note as the author further concludes that "this is a new tune and we're expecting things to change".

I highly recommend "BenHazar, Son to a Stranger" to those who are looking for a thought-provoking, suspensful novel that captivates the reader's imagination. After reading this book, I can say that the author, Aron Shai, understands father/son dynamics and writes with compassion and poignancy about relationships between men and women as well. Shai is an historian, well-versed in the areas mentioned in his novel and this not only lends credibility to the story but makes for fascinating background detail.

Don't miss this grpping story. It's an important book to read if you want to better understand human nature and the key relationships between father and son and mother and son. With an unusual viewpoint, the author relates every man's desire to make ammends with parents and to reach a state of peaceful accord. Does the main character succeed, you'll have to read it for yourself to find out. It's a book that's worth your time.… (meer)

As noted in a line of text running along the top of the front cover, this self-described historical novel has a variety of settings in time and place: World War II, pre-1948 Jerusalem, Oxford, Greece (specifically Ioannina), Hong Kong, and the Yom Kippur War (October 1973). The book actually begins five years earlier, when 25-year-old Benhazar (which in Hebrew means "son to a stranger") Cohen tries to find out about the strange secret life of his father, Jochanan, who has recently died in a suspicious fire.

For many readers like me, this book suffers from the author's assumption of reader familiarity with Israeli history, as well as perhaps an awkward translation from the original Hebrew. Unfortunately, the story was not interesting enough to do what good historical fiction does for me, which is to inspire me to learn more about the historical setting (time and place). Three eras and four locations in only 204 pages didn't help. I did read a little about Ioannina and the aforementioned war, and I was intrigued by the use of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) in the dialogue.

I was not inspired, however, to read more about the complicated political situations and people that Jochanan was involved in with Japan, Israel, Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, and Burma. The author is a professor of history and East Asian studies and apparently wanted to incorporate his interests in the book. A blurb on the back of the book says "Many of the events in this fascinating and suspenseful novel are based on actual historical events disclosed for the very first time," but it's not clear what those events are. The book might have benefitted from an afterword. BenHazar makes an rambling political speech at his wedding, and that and the epilogue are apparently the author's theories about reaching peace in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The most interesting part of the book was the chapter about Jochanan's sister Sarina and her family hiding from the Nazis in Ioannina during World War II, apparently aided by a German soldier named Hans who was in love with Sarina. She is the most interesting character in the book. BenHazar's mother Irena is mildly intriguing, but like many other characters in the book, she is a caricature, confined to a mental institution for unexplained reasons. Another character's disappearance is supposed to be significant, but it's never explained why.

This book was confusing and rather boring, and I can't recommend it. Thank goodness it was a quick read. I give it one-half star for the parts on Sarina and Ioannina.… (meer)