The Nimrod Flip-Out

The deceptive simplicity of these often funny and oddly moving short – in some cases very short – stories reveals Keret to be a lively wit and an exuberant satirist.

Set mostly in the author’s native Israel, these tales capture the ennui of life for the younger generation (smoking pot, going to the beach, searching for the secret of happiness) and poke gentle fun at Jewish stereotypes.

However, there are also surprisingly moving vignettes here: a doctor cannot decide whether to tell a husband that his wife – who has been killed in a terrorist explosion - would have died of a brain tumour anyway; a successful businessman makes up a story about how he came by the nickname Teddy Trunk to mask the darker truth; and a woman’s relationship comes to an end in New York.

And then there are the surreal stories: a restaurant offers a dish of talking fish; a man wins money in bars by betting that he can put people in bottles (he can); a woman gives birth to a horse.

Some short story collections are best savoured by reading one or two stories at a time; the inventiveness of Keret’s writing (translated from the Hebrew) compels the reader to plough through The Nimrod Flip-Out at speed, but the images it leaves behind linger long after the end of the book.

Reviewed by James Smith, Booktrust website editor