Lovers and Strangers

 These two novellas concern love. In 'Frenzy', Shaul is convinced that his wife is having an affair. He feverishly imagines her, in every painful detail, with her lover. Esther has never seen the human side of her aloof brother-in-law, but during a night-time journey Shaul unburdens himself, recreating an affair he has never witnessed. Is he mad? Or has he divined the truth? In 'Her Body Knows', Rotem has spent most of her life being angry with her mother, Nilli. Now Nilli is dying and Rotem, who has finally found happiness in London, must return to say goodbye. She arrives with a story about Nilli, full of accusations, empathy, love and forgiveness.

Review: 'Grossman's fiction is driven by his obsession with his characters' inner lives, which revolve around delicate, mostly invisible plot lines ... Shaul's fantasy and Rotem's spin on a true story are two sides of one coin: Grossman's passion for the redeeming, unpeeling power of fiction, and his art in creating fiction with such power' Elena Lappin, Independent 'The experience of reading 'Frenzy', the first of two novellas in Lovers and Strangers, is like being locked in a dark, overheated room. The atmosphere is stifling and things might not be as they at first seem. The story is claustrophobic internally and externally both in its physical details and in its emotional intensity. It is an uncomfortable read ... He is an anatomist with a sharp knife' Scottish Sunday Mail 'Absorbing and moving ... [Her Body Knows] is a wonderful story, short and bittersweet' John Harding, Daily Mail 'This pair of dramatic novellas are tough fictions, elegant and near virtuoso in the exactness of the sensuous, physical prose but relentless in their pursuit of emotional truth ... his fiction is lively, intense and unafraid of tackling the most raw corners of a psyche' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times