A brilliant, life-affirming, and hilarious memoir from a genius” (TheNew York Times) and master storyteller.

The seven years between the birth of Etgar Keret’s son and the death of his father were good years, though still full of reasons to worry. Lev is born in the midst of a terrorist attack. Etgar’s father gets cancer. The threat of constant war looms over their home and permeates daily life.

What emerges from this dark reality is a series of sublimely absurd ruminations on everything from Etgar’s three-year-old son’s impending military service to the terrorist mind-set behind Angry Birds. There’s Lev’s insistence that he is a cat, releasing him from any human responsibilities or rules. Etgar’s siblings, all very different people who have chosen radically divergent paths in life, come together after his father’s shivah to experience the grief and love that tie a family together forever. This wise, witty memoirEtgar’s first nonfiction book published in America, and told in his inimitable styleis full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humor.

"This consistently strong collection showcases a group of Israeli writers who are not well known in the U.S. Definitely one of the highlights in the long-running Akashic series."
--Booklist, Starred review

"May be the very best in a generally solid series....This collection escapes the limits of formula fiction and sets the bar high for subsequentNoir offerings. The genre is hot, Tel Aviv is exotic, and this volume is outstanding. What's not to like?"
--Library Journal, Starred review

One of Jewish Journal's Noteworthy Books for the New Year

"Even in the Holy Land, people find ingenious ways to screw up their own lives, as the latest entry in Akashic's Noir Series proves....Editors Keret and Gavron stress not what makes Tel Aviv unique but what it has in common with other cities: its people's endless, often fruitless struggle to cash in on a losing hand."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Readers interested in exploring the dark side of Tel Aviv will be fascinated by these short pieces of noir literature."
--Times of Israel

"For anyone interested in some of Israel's best younger writers, as well as the seamy underside of its most populous city,Tel Aviv Noir will keep your adrenaline flowing at any hour."
--Jewish Book Council

"This is a terrific collection to pick up, read a story or two, then return to, for different slices of life in Israel."
--Chicaco Jewish Star

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched with the summer '04 award-winning best sellerBrooklyn Noir. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. ForTel Aviv Noir, Etgar Keret and Assaf Gavron have masterfully assembled some of Israel's top contemporary writers into a compulsively readable collection.

From the introduction by Etgar Keret:

"In spite of its outwardly warm and polite exterior, Tel Aviv has quite a bit to hide. At any club, most of the people dancing around you to the sounds of a deep-house hit dedicated to peace and love have undergone extensive automatic-weapons training and a hand-grenade tutorial...The workers washing the dishes in the fluorescent-lit kitchen of that same club are Eritrean refugees who have crossed the Egyptian border illegally, along with a group of bedouins smuggling some high-quality hash, which the deejay will soon be smoking on his little podium, right by the busy dance floor filled with drunks, coked-up lawyers, and Ukrainian call girls whose pimp keeps their passports in a safe two streets away. Don't get me wrong--Tel Aviv is a lovely, safe city. Most of the time, for most of its inhabitants. But the stories in this collection describe what happens the rest of the time, to the rest of its inhabitants. From one last cup of coffee at a café targeted by a suicide bomber, through repeat visits from a Yiddish-speaking ghost, to an organized tour of mythological crime scenes that goes terribly wrong, the stories ofTel Aviv Noir reveal the concealed, scarred face of this city that we love so much."

Featuring brand-new stories by: Etgar Keret, Gadi Taub, Lavie Tidhar, Deakla Keydar, Matan Hermoni, Julia Fermentto, Gon Ben Ari, Shimon Adaf, Alex Epstein, Antonio Ungar, Gai Ad, Assaf Gavron, Silje Bekeng, and Yoav Katz.

Included in The Jewish Week's Fall Preview

'May be the very best in a generally solid series....This collection escapes the limits of formula fiction and sets the bar high for subsequent Noir offerings. The genre is hot, Tel Aviv is exotic, and this volume is outstanding. What's not to like?'
--Library Journal, Starred review

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched with the summer '04 award-winning best seller Brooklyn Noir. Each book is comprised of all-new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. For Tel Aviv Noir, Etgar Keret and Assaf Gavron have masterfully assembled some of Israel's top contemporary writers into a compulsively readable collection.

From the introduction by Etgar Keret:

'In spite of its outwardly warm and polite exterior, Tel Aviv has quite a bit to hide. At any club, most of the people dancing around you to the sounds of a deep-house hit dedicated to peace and love have undergone extensive automatic-weapons training and a hand-grenade tutorial...The workers washing the dishes in the fluorescent-lit kitchen of that same club are Eritrean refugees who have crossed the Egyptian border illegally, along with a group of bedouins smuggling some high-quality hash, which the deejay will soon be smoking on his little podium, right by the busy dance floor filled with drunks, coked-up lawyers, and Ukrainian call girls whose pimp keeps their passports in a safe two streets away. Don't get me wrong--Tel Aviv is a lovely, safe city. Most of the time, for most of its inhabitants. But the stories in this collection describe what happens the rest of the time, to the rest of its inhabitants. From one last cup of coffee at a café targeted by a suicide bomber, through repeat visits from a Yiddish-speaking ghost, to an organized tour of mythological crime scenes that goes terribly wrong, the stories of Tel Aviv Noir reveal the concealed, scarred face of this city that we love so much.'

Featuring brand-new stories by: Etgar Keret, Gadi Taub, Lavie Tidhar, Deakla Keydar, Matan Hermoni, Julia Fermentto, Gon Ben Ari, Shimon Adaf, Alex Epstein, Antonio Ungar, Gai Ad, Assaf Gavron, Silje Bekeng, and Yoav Katz.

McSweeney’s began in 1998 as a literary journal, edited by Dave Eggers, that published only works rejected by other magazines. But after the first issue, the journal began to publish pieces primarily written with McSweeney’s in mind. Since then, it has attracted works from some of the finest writers in the country, including Denis Johnson, William T. Vollmann, Rick Moody, Joyce Carol Oates, Heidi Julavits, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Ben Marcus, Susan Straight, Roddy Doyle, T. C. Boyle, Steven Millhauser, Gabe Hudson, Robert Coover, Ann Beattie, and many others. Today, McSweeney’s has grown to be one of the country’s best-read and most-widely circulated literary journals, with an expanding, loyal subscriber base and strong independent bookstore following. As a small publishing house, McSweeney’s is committed to finding new voices — Gabe Hudson, Paul Collins, Neal Pollack, J. T. Leroy, John Hodgman, Amy Fusselman, Salvador Plascencia, and Sean Wilsey are among those whose early work appeared in McSweeney’s — and promoting the work of gifted but underappreciated writers, such as Lydia Davis and Stephen Dixon.