CAFÉ NEVO

Café Nevo is the gathering place for a large and diverse group of Tel Aviv residents--artists, writers, politicians, chess players, and casual and serious drinkers. They are mainly Jews, some are Arabs. Set in the present, this much acclaimed novel about the lives, loves, feuds, and entanglements of Café Nevo's customers selectively covers a considerable period of Israel's post-WWII history. Anna Fields is excellent with both masculine and feminine voices. Her rendition of Sternholtz, the ancient waiter and proprietor of Café Nevo, is brilliant. Sternholtz is a wonderfully conceived character, and Fields does everything possible in her reading to make him come to life. We come to know this irascible, no-nonsense old man who has seen everything, and experienced much that is terrible. He is an incurable insomniac who is tired of his own life. Nonetheless, he works to better things for the people who are important to him. He is a force for common sense in a world that is largely irrational, a force for good amidst much evil. R.E.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine [Published: JUN/JUL 01]