A Hot Israeli Novel of Erotic Obsession
I went into Rosenfeld—a novel of erotic obsession and revulsion in equal measure by Maya Kessler, translated from the Hebrew earlier this year after topping the Israeli literary charts for thirty weeks in 2022—knowing nothing.
Had I realized Rosenfeld (Avid Reader Press, $28.99) is being marketed widely as “white-hot” and “x-rated” I might have chosen another read. But it is a credit to Kessler’s style that I wanted to know precisely where she’d choose to leave these characters at the end of the novel, after its heroine, a disaffected and single-minded Tel Aviv resident in her late thirties, falls hard for Teddy Rosenfeld—a high-powered executive in his fifties. Their liaisons, which constitute the majority of the plot of the novel, are graphic, visceral—and maybe sexy, depending on your taste.
Even in the throes of come sex scenes that had me questioning the laws of physics, I was curious if Noa—the novel’s prickly, self-absorbed, depressed protagonist—would find what she was looking for. After all, it’s her seeking quality that propels her, and the book, through her escapades with the title character. But what is she looking for? The easy answer is a really good lay, but Kessler pulls back the curtain just far enough to hint at an inner life, complex needs, and some secrets both protagonists keep from one another and that unfurl as we march towards a denouement. Rosenfeld is a novel of desires, unabashed in reminding the reader of our own nakedly (I know, I know) selfish ones. We are, Kessler seems to argue, gaping maws of want.
Kessler’s writing is quick, confident and frank. Yet it’s clear that the English version of the book is a translation; how much of the shortness and lack of sentimentality is a result of its Hebrew origins (and my own notions about Israeli communication style) is harder to ascertain. At times, I felt my mind drifting—what is the Hebrew word for penis? Did she use synonyms or rotating euphemisms in the original edition of this book, or was she just writing about—forgive me—Big Hard Members all the way down?
Still: after finishing Rosenfeld, I (finally) picked up Taffy Brodesser Akner’s Long Island Compromise, and quickly found myself putting these two books in mental dialogue with each other. Beamer, the second son in Brodesser-Akner’s extended fable, is trapped in an absurd web of sexual dysfunction and increasingly elaborate steps needed to achieve orgasm. Primarily this consists of sex workers re-staging his father’s kidnapping, an event from which he has never recovered.
Like Noa and her titular Rosenfeld, Beamer’s desires are filthy, frequent, and seemingly nonsensical to the average (vanilla) reader. But unraveling the logic behind them becomes a project with appeal. Several weeks later, I’m still thinking about both novels, and have found myself recommending them with alarming frequency.
Justine Orlovsky-Schnitlzer is a writer in Los Angeles and the co-editor of an anthology about American Girl Dolls ( forthcoming May 2025).
