MAY 2021 - AudioFile
The titular city is Jerusalem, with parts of the audiobook also set in Hebron, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv, and Ramallah. The characters live in all those cities. There is no single story; instead there are numerous points of view, and narrator Lameece Issaq relies on subtle accents and the text to keep listeners oriented. This seems to be an interpretive choice, as it stresses the common humanity of all the people, Israeli and Palestinian, who pass by and through each other’s lives. It also enables the listener to feel the fear in all the parties involved in this most intractable of conflicts. That galaxy of fear is the real center of this audiobook. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
11/09/2020
Sacks’s ambitious and panoramic debut gives a glimpse into the everyday experiences of 28 residents of the West Bank whose extraordinary, tension-filled lives embody the region’s challenges and contradictions. The characters (don’t worry, there’s an index) include a professor at Bethlehem University who idly dreams of escaping to America, an American expat and new mother having doubts about her young family, a German reporter eager to make a name for herself, and a Jewish American teenager about to get married. Their individual crises intersect in various ways—generally involving the university, the military, and the ubiquitous checkpoints—and play out against the backdrop of ongoing sectarian drama. After a 14-year-old Israeli girl is stabbed to death in her West Bank settlement home, a mob of young Israeli men retaliate by beating a Palestinian teenager (with no connection to the stabbing) nearly to death. Sacks demonstrates a deep knowledge of the place and its people, and does an excellent job of inhabiting the many points of view through strong voices and rich emotion, making palpable the hate and love at odds not only across cultures but within individual hearts. Fans of Nathan Englander will find much to love. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
Reads devastatingly true…A novel that resists offering a false sense of hope in the face of conflict.” — New York Times Book Review
“Intersecting lives in modern-day Israel and Palestine overlap in a tapestry of tales in this compelling, rich novel that delves into universal themes of homeland, freedom, and true security.” — GMA.com Best Books
“Sacks deftly zooms in on the perspectives of a broad cast of characters…She reveals with startling intimacy what it’s like to live in the center of one of the world’s most divisive conflicts.” — Real Simple Top Picks
“An American novel manages, for once, to get Israel right…I loved it. By the end of the novel, I was emotionally exhausted but also deeply appreciative of the care and nuance on every page, and the plot’s purposeful irresolution.” — Los Angeles Times
“Employs a large cast of characters with interwoven stories that represent the many ideologies and truths at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As these characters fight for the future they believe in, a common humanity reveals itself in heart-wrenching ways.” — Elle Magazine Best Books of 2021
“A novel of panoramic ambition, scope and complexity . . . whose characters can never entirely escape the undertow of the region’s conflicts, which shape their most intimate interactions. Sacks writes with a generosity and gentleness at odds with her troubling subject matter. . . . It is thrilling is to see how cleverly she fits the puzzle pieces of her narrative together, linking all those lives with far fewer than six degrees of separation between them.” — Jewish Forward
"Ambitious and expansive. . . . A poignant humanizing of the story as characters battle for security and dignity…But there is beauty, too, the beauty we all deserve to have—in matters of family or love or marriage." — Texas Public Radio
“A stunning first novel . . . imbued with foreboding at every turn. . . . Through her vibrant characters, Sacks paints a moving and powerful portrait of those who love the region passionately despite its many tensions and dangers.” — Booklist (starred review)
“In her enthralling kaleidoscope of a first novel, Rebecca Sacks coldly, hotly, deftly, examines the violence that can underpin solidarity, and the vice grip of history on our present. CITY OF A THOUSAND GATES reminded me what fiction can do that ideology and religion cannot: Show us our paradoxes.” — Danzy Senna
“This beautiful novel manages to inhabit the experience of multiple characters across the Israel/Palestine divide. It is fascinating, compelling, and propulsive, building to a conclusion that is as inevitable as it is shocking.” — Ayelet Waldman
Real Simple Top Picks
Sacks deftly zooms in on the perspectives of a broad cast of characters…She reveals with startling intimacy what it’s like to live in the center of one of the world’s most divisive conflicts.
GMA.com Best Books
Intersecting lives in modern-day Israel and Palestine overlap in a tapestry of tales in this compelling, rich novel that delves into universal themes of homeland, freedom, and true security.
Elle Magazine Best Books of 2021
Employs a large cast of characters with interwoven stories that represent the many ideologies and truths at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As these characters fight for the future they believe in, a common humanity reveals itself in heart-wrenching ways.
Javier Zamorra
"Rebecca Sacks gracefully captures intimate moments on both sides of the fences that separate lives that are more connected than they seem. By weaving together characters that range from soccer players to professors, soldiers, and journalists, she shows us that underneath violence and contempt, there is hope." —Javier Zamora
Diana Abu Jaber
This gripping, multi-balanced tale of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict sweeps readers into a whirl of a story. A multitude of characters and perspectives move around two murders at the heart of this book, giving us a sweeping, ambitious, and deeply authentic look at the passions and preoccupations that ignite the region. This captivating novel will linger with readers long after the final page is turned.
Danzy Senna
In her enthralling kaleidoscope of a first novel, Rebecca Sacks coldly, hotly, deftly, examines the violence that can underpin solidarity, and the vice grip of history on our present. CITY OF A THOUSAND GATES reminded me what fiction can do that ideology and religion cannot: Show us our paradoxes.” —Danzy Senna
Etaf Rum
A nuanced, powerful portrait of what it means to be caught in the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank. I found myself and my family in the pages of this beautifully written, brave, and incredibly compassionate novel. I couldn’t put it down.
Texas Public Radio
"Ambitious and expansive. . . . A poignant humanizing of the story as characters battle for security and dignity…But there is beauty, too, the beauty we all deserve to have—in matters of family or love or marriage."
Jewish Forward
A novel of panoramic ambition, scope and complexity . . . whose characters can never entirely escape the undertow of the region’s conflicts, which shape their most intimate interactions. Sacks writes with a generosity and gentleness at odds with her troubling subject matter. . . . It is thrilling is to see how cleverly she fits the puzzle pieces of her narrative together, linking all those lives with far fewer than six degrees of separation between them.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
CITY OF A THOUSAND GATES is a stunning debut, expansive yet intimate in its embrace of multiple voices, the rare novel that holds the personal and the political in perfect equipoise. The Palestine-Israel conflict is brought into focus with devastating clarity through Rebecca Sacks’ deep, unwavering attention to the lives shaped by it. Characters who couldn’t be more different from one another, yet all are imagined with intense understanding and particularity, their strengths and their shortcomings treated with equal care. The degree to which this book loves its many characters feels nothing short of radical.” —Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Joshua Ferris
Smart on the eternal sorrows of an endless conflict, City of a Thousand Gates is rich with the pleasures that only a novel can provide: the ironies, the insights, the puncturing of the political pieties. Panoramic in scope, devastating in its detail, Sacks’s novel spares no one, but sympathetically, emphatically, with tremendous love.
Nicole Krauss
"Probing and investigative, City of a Thousand Gates illustrates the endless reverberations of political conflict and its violence within the most intimate corners of personal life. Sacks deeply humanizes a conflict that dehumanizes on every level.
Ayelet Waldman
This beautiful novel manages to inhabit the experience of multiple characters across the Israel/Palestine divide. It is fascinating, compelling, and propulsive, building to a conclusion that is as inevitable as it is shocking.
Booklist (starred review)
A stunning first novel . . . imbued with foreboding at every turn. . . . Through her vibrant characters, Sacks paints a moving and powerful portrait of those who love the region passionately despite its many tensions and dangers.
Danzy Senna
In her enthralling kaleidoscope of a first novel, Rebecca Sacks coldly, hotly, deftly, examines the violence that can underpin solidarity, and the vice grip of history on our present. CITY OF A THOUSAND GATES reminded me what fiction can do that ideology and religion cannot: Show us our paradoxes.
|Los Angeles Times
An American novel manages, for once, to get Israel right…I loved it. By the end of the novel, I was emotionally exhausted but also deeply appreciative of the care and nuance on every page, and the plot’s purposeful irresolution.
New York Times Book Review
Reads devastatingly true…A novel that resists offering a false sense of hope in the face of conflict.
Los Angeles Times
An American novel manages, for once, to get Israel right…I loved it. By the end of the novel, I was emotionally exhausted but also deeply appreciative of the care and nuance on every page, and the plot’s purposeful irresolution.
Entertainment Weekly
The novel showcases the humanity, tragedy, and complexity of life in the West Bank… The characters’ interwoven lives will stay with you long after the book's denouement.
Library Journal
11/01/2020
DEBUT After a 14-year-old Israeli settler in the West Bank is stabbed to death in her bedroom, it's only a matter of time before retaliation begins: Palestinian teenager Salem is beaten into a coma by 20 Jewish youths. Vera, a German journalist living in Tel Aviv, chafes at having to write a puff piece about a luxury hotel when she would rather cultivate these important, hard-hitting stories. She interviews Samar, a Palestinian professor at Bethlehem University whose day begins with another stressful encounter with armed soldiers Danny and Ori at a checkpoint. When Salem succumbs to his injuries, Vera records viral footage of Palestinians spiriting Salem's shrouded body over a border wall behind the hospital, ensuring a martyr's burial. Through the eyes of these and many more compelling characters, Sacks creates a snapshot of lives shattered by decades of conflict. Parents, students, and soldiers live in a constant state of dread waiting for the next bomb to explode, while barriers, restrictions, and curfews curtail any semblance of normality for those on either side of the walls surely built to inhibit understanding. VERDICT This ambitious, forceful debut novel, likely informed by Sacks's years studying in Tel Aviv, personalizes with startling clarity the seemingly unsolvable conundrum that is the Middle East. This is a thinking reader's book.—Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
MAY 2021 - AudioFile
The titular city is Jerusalem, with parts of the audiobook also set in Hebron, Bethlehem, Tel Aviv, and Ramallah. The characters live in all those cities. There is no single story; instead there are numerous points of view, and narrator Lameece Issaq relies on subtle accents and the text to keep listeners oriented. This seems to be an interpretive choice, as it stresses the common humanity of all the people, Israeli and Palestinian, who pass by and through each other’s lives. It also enables the listener to feel the fear in all the parties involved in this most intractable of conflicts. That galaxy of fear is the real center of this audiobook. D.M.H. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
