Other Views on Alexandrian Summer

 The Literary Review's A Review of Alexandrian Summer by Yitzhak Gormezano Goren by Jody Handerson makes points I overlooked and in retrospect must very much agree with:

Goren has chosen to illustrate this charged moment not with broad strokes and ominous foreshadowing, but by presenting a lavishly detailed account of the ordinary. The author trails behind the characters, presenting David Hamdi-Ali’s unrequited love for Robby’s indifferent sister, Joseph’s anguish over his son’s waning career as an elite jockey and Robby’s sexual experimentation with Victor and other neighborhood boys. The narrative is rich with small events, allowing the reader to relax, ignore the few reminders of impending strife and simply enjoy Goren’s characters and their everyday struggles with life.

The story’s move towards a darker conclusion is almost imperceptible, and largely shrugged off by Goren’s characters. They dance in and out of summer amusements, card games, horse races, proposals and rejections, with the exception of Joseph, whose physical decline and obsession with his son’s failing career leads to the culmination of the story and his life.

The Jewish Book Council has a succinct but upbeat review, in part:

Com­pact as it is, Alexan­dri­an Sum­mer goes far in deliv­er­ing that ​“mul­ti-every­thing” to us in unfor­get­table lan­guage that lingers long after the final page. Through­out this riv­et­ing fam­i­ly dra­ma, Goren often paus­es to cap­ture Alexandria’s sin­gu­lar ambiance: though decid­ed­ly resis­tant to sen­ti­men­tal nos­tal­gia, Goren pro­vides many moments so pal­pa­bly appeal­ing that read­ers will often feel thor­ough­ly seduced by its van­ished charms: ​“A pleas­ant breeze blew from the sea. The tumult of bathers sound­ed from afar: Mus­lims, Chris­tians and Jews des­e­crat­ing the Sab­bath. On the street, cars honked hys­ter­i­cal­ly. The entire city rum­bled and roared; nev­er­the­less a Sab­bath seren­i­ty was felt all around.” Only the most hard­ened read­er would not wish to linger in this place, would not ache over its trag­ic and abrupt end­ing, no mat­ter how inevitable it might seem from the per­spec­tive of today’s end­less violence.

Yitzhak Gormezano Goren himself publishes a piece on Lit Hub about his novel:

So I got away with my pants still on. And still, I didn’t quite understand what was so innovative about my novel. I always believed I had written a simple, modest and unpretentious book. I was aware that it held a certain attraction, and I felt that the critical acclaim was largely owing to its inherent charm and the love affair that ensued between readers and my novel, but I still couldn’t understand what made it so special.

Then, one day I realized: “Aha! I know the answer! Israeli literature is usually obsessed with themes like the kibbutz, the Holocaust, the Palestinians, and the Jerusalem Syndrome. People found it refreshing to read about Diaspora Jews— albeit from an Arab country—who were not wretched and pitiable like those from the shtetl! And it’s no wonder: It took me 37 years to unleash myself from constraints of the Israeli melting pot that dictated what’s in and what’s out in Israeli culture, and to have the audacity to think that writing about coquettish decadent Alexandria is as legitimate in Hebrew literature as debating Zionist questions.” Putting aside any literary accomplishments, of which I surely cannot be an impartial judge, what made Alexandrian Summer special was its social achievement. Here was a book that did not engage with any of the prevailing themes—not out of refusal—but simply because the world I chose to write about, the world I grew up in, was elsewhere.

So every culture imposes its own constraints.