Description
Book SynopsisThis modern-day crime/psychological thriller is set against a backdrop of intolerance and narrow-mindedness, ambiguous motives and suspicious alibis. Its sinuous plot and complex characters take the reader on a suspense-filled journey of discovery. Sara, born to a Muslim mother and a Jewish father, is a Canadian archaeology student who has moved to Jerusalem. She soon realises that Israel is a country where questions of faith and religion are inextricably mixed with politics and daily life—all too often creating deeply rooted frontiers and barriers in the souls of the people who live there.
As she confronts the two seemingly opposing sides of her family's origins and wonders how she can she live and love in such a turbulent environment, Sara suddenly goes missing. Her father heads from Montreal to Jerusalem to find out what happened to her. There he joins her friends, professors, and the police officer charged with the investigation in an agonising waiting game and learns that there were parts of her life she hadn't shared with anyone.
Trade ReviewEmmanuel Kattan has a great talent for literature." —
Canadian Jewish News"[Emmanuel Kattan] impresses this autumn with his second novel,
Paths of Desire, which blends spirituality, a search for identity, and an intriguing detective story set against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Complex as the world itself, pure and simple as a father's love for his daughter. . . . Emmanuel Kattan intentionally leaves a lot of questions unanswered in his story, precisely so that readers are not confined to a single interpretation of reality. . . . His approach is more open, even if it frustrates some readers who would like to have every last detail of the story laid out for them—the end is tragic, but as for a guilty party, there is none." —
La Presse newspaper
"Kattan artfully plays with various narrative forms. Through different narrators, we discover the story of the protagonist Sara. The main intrigue, the search for Sara, is interspersed with her personal journal and the exchange of emails between Sara and her father, Daniel. Thanks to these levels of narration, we have as much information as possible, and reading becomes ever more exciting. The further we get into the mystery of Sara's disappearance, the harder it is to put the book down. Kattan dares to write about delicate subjects such as religion and war, and he does so without scandalmongering. This well-written novel manages to touch us, particularly thanks to Sara's past and the relationship she has with her parents. Sara is one of the novel's strong points because she is a magnificent character who persists in her search for freedom, acceptance and respect." —Valérie Faubert, www.pieuvre.ca
