EDGES
The feature film “The Fragile Mistress” is based upon Edges. With the release of the film the book has been reissued as The Fragile Mistress, by Hamilton Stone Editions containing about 75 more pages of text and narrative.
Edges is set in a pre-1967 Israel, during the Cold War. Liana Bialik is fourteen years old when the suicide of her American father forces her family to return to her mother’s native Jerusalem. A chance meeting with a runaway American diplomat’s son in the forest draws Liana into an odyssey of borders,
The feature film “The Fragile Mistress” is based upon Edges. With the release of the film the book has been reissued as The Fragile Mistress, by Hamilton Stone Editions containing about 75 more pages of text and narrative.
Edges is set in a pre-1967 Israel, during the Cold War. Liana Bialik is fourteen years old when the suicide of her American father forces her family to return to her mother’s native Jerusalem. A chance meeting with a runaway American diplomat’s son in the forest draws Liana into an odyssey of borders, loss, and love. After witnessing the accidental death of a young Arab boy caught in a crossfire between snipers, Liana is impelled to confront her conflicts about identity and culpability. She must choose between following the paths of darkness that have kept her bound to her grieving and engulfing mother and her own sexual self-discovery . Characters are drawn from Israel’s long-forgotten past, members of the 1940’s Haganah and Jewish underground who find themselves displaced amidst the chaotic and complex tensions of an Israel just beginning to modernize and expand. Liana learns about her mother’s childhood in the ancient city, and her past in the wars. Places and dates eventually yield to timeless truths as she is able to use this heritage as her own mystical starting point.
- Glad Day Books
- Paperback
- 9781930180147
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About Leora Skolkin-Smith
Born in Manhattan in 1952, Leora Skolkin-Smith spent her childhood between New York and Israel, traveling with her family to her mother’s birthplace in old Jerusalem every three years. She has been published in Persea: An International Review and the Sarah Lawrence Review. The recipient of grants from The Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York State Council on the Arts, and P.E.N. American Center, she has also developed and directed writing programs for the mentally ill in eight major psychiatric hospitals. In the last few years she was co-founder of The Emmett Till/Anne Frank program, a multicultural educational initiative for Afro-American and Jewish youth in Brooklyn. Leora holds a BA and MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. This is her first published full-length novel.