This image is the cover for the book Drive

Drive

This acclaimed debut novel takes readers inside the mind of a young and deeply conflicted Israeli soldier: “Israel’s own The Catcher in the Rye”(The Los Angeles Review of Books).

The Drive follows the emotional and psychological journey of a young Israeli soldier who is unable to carry out his military service yet terrified of the consequences of leaving the army. As the unnamed soldier and his father drive along the Coastal Highway to meet with a military psychiatrist, Yair Assulin offers a penetrating view of Israeli society, a young man in crisis, and the universal urge to resist regimentation and violence.

Weary of being forced to join a larger collective, the soldier yearns for an existence free of politics, the news cycle, and perpetual battle-readiness. But to seek such a life would mean risking the respect of those he loves most. The Drive is a compelling story of an urgent personal quest to reconcile duty, expectations and individual instinct.

Yair Assulin, Jessica Cohen

Yair Assulin, born in 1986, studied philosophy and history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Drive is the first of two novels he has written and for which he won Israel’s Ministry of Culture Prize and the Sapir Prize for debut fiction. He has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for authors, writes a weekly column in the newspaper Haaretz and has been a visiting lecturer in Jewish studies at Yale.

Jessica Cohen shared the 2017 Man Booker International Prize with author David Grossman for her translation of A Horse Walks into a Bar. She has translated works by Amos Oz, Etgar Keret, Dorit Rabinyan, Ronit Matalon and Nir Baram.

New Vessel Press