A subtle and passionate novel of middle-aged intimacy.
'We could be like two people who inject themselves with truth serum, and at long last have to tell it; the truth. I want to be able to say to myself, "I bled truth with her", yes, that's what I want. Be a knife for me, and I, I swear, will be a knife for you.'
An awkward, neurotic seller of rare books writes a desperate letter to a beautiful stranger whom he sees at a class reunion. This simple, lonely attempt at seduction begins a love affair of words between Yair and Miriam, two married, middle-aged adults, dissatisfied with their lives, yearning for the connection that has always eluded them; and, eventually, reawakened to feelings that they thought had passed them by. Their correspondence unfolds into an exchange of their most naked confessions: of desire, childhood tragedies, joys, and humiliations.
Through the dialogue between Yair; a family man and surprisingly successful adulterer, whose guarded letters reveal a life of duplicity; and Miriam, at first deceptively open and warm, who fills her life with distraction to avoid a past full of painful secrets, Be My Knife explores the nature and limits of intimacy.
A departure from David Grossman's previous work, 'Be My Knife' is his subtlest, most passionate novel yet.
