Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s latest novel The Wolf Hunt (translated by Sondra Silverston) was first published in Hebrew with the name Relocation. And while the new title has some resonance with the plot, the original name cuts deeper to the concerns that Gundar-Goshen is trying to explore. That is, the split of lives of expatriate Israelis who have relocated to America. Along the way she deals with many more issues including the fraught relationship between parents and teenagers, bullying, anti-semitism and racism.
The Wolf Hunt opens with a killer short chapter in which the narrator, an Israeli woman called Lilach but who everyone calls Leela, tells readers that her son has been accused of killing another boy but that she knows that this isn’t true. But actually, as the story evolves through the lead up to the death of Jamal Jones and the aftermath, neither the reader not Lilach is quite as sure. Before she gets to that death, though, Lilach describes another – the killing of a young woman by a knife wielding man in a synagogue that puts the whole of the Jewish community of Silicon Valley (where the family has relocated for her husband’s work) on alert. So much so that her son Adam, along with a group of teenage boys fall under the spell of a man called Uri who offers them intense self defence training and the mantra that if someone rises up to kill them then they should strike first. So that when Jamal is found dead at a party, eventually suspicion falls on Adam, and Uri, also an Israeli, is there to offer the family support.
The Wolf Hunt is tense from the first page and Gundar-Goshen succeeds in constantly tightening the screws on Lilach and her family. Uri, in particular is a mercurial character and Lilach is never sure whether to trust him or not sometimes being suspicious of his motives but sometimes being grateful that he is there to help and guide them, that there is at least one adult who can communicate with her son. Along the way, she surfaces a number of issues without necessarily resolving anything, just highlighting the fact that they are complicated. This includes anti-semitism, the additional tension created by the displacement of Black communities in certain parts of America (in this case Palo Alto), the factors that have pushed Israelis to leave their home country which also put pressure on them to succeed in America.
By sitting behind Lilach’s point of view, the reader cannot help but be swept into her fears and concerns – is her son a murderer? is Uri trying to undermine or support her relationship with him? is her husband having an affair? what is she supposed to do with her life in America with her husband as the sole breadwinner? The makes The Wolf Hunt an often uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding book to read. Not all of Lilach’s questions are answered, while some elements are resolved there is still plenty of grey left at the end. But in this way The Wolf Hunt is as messy and as unsatisfying as life can be and that is another one of its many strengths.