Be My Knife

**The international bestseller *Be My Knife* is a compelling love story from David Grossman, the leading Israeli novelist of his generation** *We could be like two people who inject themselves with truth serum, and at long last have to tell itthe truth. I want to be able to say to myself, ‘I bled truth with her,’ yes, that’s what I want. Be a knife for me, and I, I swear, will be a knife for you.* An awkward, neurotic seller of rare books writes a desperate letter to a beautiful stranger whom he sees at a class reunion. This simple, lonely attempt at seduction begins a love affair of words between Yair and Miriam, two married, middle-aged adults, dissatisfied with their lives, yearning for the connection that has always eluded themand, eventually, reawakened to feelings that they thought had passed them by. Their correspondence unfolds into an exchange of their most naked confessions: of desire, childhood tragedies, joys, and humiliations. Through the dialogue between Yaira family man and surprisingly successful adulterer, whose complex, guarded letters reveal a life of secrets kept from the people closest to himand Miriam, at first deceptively open and warm, who fills her life with distraction to avoid a past full of painful secrets, *Be My Knife* explores the nature and the limits of intimacy. A deep departure from David Grossman’s previous work, *Be My Knife* is his subtlest, most passionate novel yet.