The palpable violence in Keret’s home of Israel is counterpoint to something more ghostlike here in the United States. The banality of everyday violence that Keret captures speaks directly to the heart of the world we live in, but so much of what’s great about his work is what happens in between the little acts of brutatily that populate these stories. The reason for my dismay, besides the squirminess that story makes me feel, was that the brutality in “Hat Trick” might obscure an important quality in Keret’s work, even while underpinning it. When I saw Etgar Keret at the PEN World Voices Festival last year I was disappointed because he chose to read “Hat Trick,” a story that is as unsettling in its implications as it is gruesome.
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