Close cookie details

This site uses cookies. Learn more about cookies.

OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.

If you do not wish to continue, please click here to exit this site.

Hide notification

  Main Nav
Her Body Knows
Cover of Her Body Knows
Her Body Knows
Two Novellas
Borrow Borrow

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

In Her Body Knows, a fevered storyteller and a captive audience revisit the past together in each of David Grossman's novellas, trying to make sense of a betrayal that neither one can put to rest.
In "Frenzy," reserved, respectable Shaul lets his sister-in-law, Esti, into a secret nightmare, as he reveals to her his conviction that his wife is having an affair. Along with Esti, we find ourselves trapped in his paranoia and desperation as we accompany the odd pair down Israel's highways on a journey that reveals a passion perverted by jealousy and self-loathing.
In the title story, a successful but embittered novelist visits her mother, who is in the last stages of cancer. Grossman investigates the powers of storytelling to harm and heal as the daughter reads aloud her own imagined, merciless account of her mother's love affair with a much younger teenage boy. Gradually it becomes clear that, for all its anger, the daughter's story and the writing process itself have led her to a new appreciation of her mother's difficult character, and her own.
Studies in obsession, claustrophobia, and the need to confess, these two novellas mark a new departure from "a writer who has been, for nearly two decades, the one of the most original and talented ... anywhere." (The New York Times Book Review).

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

In Her Body Knows, a fevered storyteller and a captive audience revisit the past together in each of David Grossman's novellas, trying to make sense of a betrayal that neither one can put to rest.
In "Frenzy," reserved, respectable Shaul lets his sister-in-law, Esti, into a secret nightmare, as he reveals to her his conviction that his wife is having an affair. Along with Esti, we find ourselves trapped in his paranoia and desperation as we accompany the odd pair down Israel's highways on a journey that reveals a passion perverted by jealousy and self-loathing.
In the title story, a successful but embittered novelist visits her mother, who is in the last stages of cancer. Grossman investigates the powers of storytelling to harm and heal as the daughter reads aloud her own imagined, merciless account of her mother's love affair with a much younger teenage boy. Gradually it becomes clear that, for all its anger, the daughter's story and the writing process itself have led her to a new appreciation of her mother's difficult character, and her own.
Studies in obsession, claustrophobia, and the need to confess, these two novellas mark a new departure from "a writer who has been, for nearly two decades, the one of the most original and talented ... anywhere." (The New York Times Book Review).

Available formats-
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB eBook
Subjects-
Languages:-
Copies-
  • Available:
    1
  • Library copies:
    1
Levels-
  • ATOS:
  • Lexile:
  • Interest Level:
  • Text Difficulty:


Excerpts-
  • Copyright © 2002 by David Grossman

    Her Body Knows

    Frenzy

    How does she do it? he wonders. Over and over again, the meticulous rituals she must perform and the nervous scurrying through rooms before leaving, slamming closet doors, opening and closing drawers. An impenetrable expression grips her lovely face during those moments—God forbid she should forget a comb or a book or a bottle of shampoo, or everything might collapse. He sits at his empty desk with his head in his hands as she tosses him a quick goodbye from the door, and his heart sinks: she didn't even come near him to take her leave. Something special is going to happen there today, and she's already rushing out into the street, looking down so as not to make eye contact with anyone and get entangled in a needless conversation. How does she keep it up? Where does she find the strength to go through with it every day?

    Then, after this momentary lapse of watchfulness, he shuts his eyes and hurries to accompany her as she gets into her car, a little green Polo. He had bought it for her as a surprise. She was horrified by the color and the extravagance, but he wanted her to have her own car. So you can come and go as you wish, he had said. So we won't keep fighting over the car. And he wanted her to have a very green car. He pictured it as a shiny microchip inserted into her veins so a camera could monitor her. Slowly he lowers his head against the back of the chair, and she drives away. Her face is strained and held too close to the windshield. It will take her about eight or nine minutes to get there. Allow for any unforeseen delays (traffic, a broken stoplight, the man waiting for her there at the apartment mislaying the keys and taking a while to open the door), and already another four or five precious minutes are lost. "Elisheva," he slowly says out loud, enunciating each syllable.

    Then he says it again, for that man.

    The man who does not want to have to waste any time later undressing—time is short—so that while she navigates the car through the braids of tiny streets connecting this house to that one, he already begins to undress in the bedroom, or perhaps by the door, taking off his baggy brown corduroys and large faded shirt. It used to be orange or brown, or even pink—he was certainly capable of wearing a pink shirt, what did he care what people thought? That's what's great about him, Shaul thinks: that he doesn't care about anything, unconcerned by what people might think or say. That is his strength, his healthy internal perfection; that is what she must be attracted to.

    She drives to him, charges toward him, her eyes pinned on the road, her mouth pulled taut. Soon that mouth will be kissed and it will soften and swell and burn. Lips will slide over it, first only flitting, barely touching, then a tongue will come and trace the outline of her lips over and over and she will try not to smile as he grumbles, Don't move while I'm drawing. She will let out a moan of consent; then his lips will rest on hers with all of their rough, masculine force, they will swallow them, wallow in them, and leave them for a moment. A warm breath will pass over them, then they will slowly be sucked with the solemnity of truly great desire, tongues will intertwine with each other like creatures with a life of their own, and she will open her eyes briefly with a weak sigh, her eyeballs will roll up a little, fade, disappear. Half-closed eyelids will reveal an empty, frightening whiteness.

    She is a large woman, Elisheva, her generosity extending to her body too. She's even a little too large for such a small car, and perhaps this was why she had been angry that he'd bought her the Polo, of all...

About the Author-
  • David Grossman has received several international awards for his writing, including the Premio Grinzane and the Premio Mondelo for The Zigzag Kid. He is the author of several novels, including A Horse Walks into a Bar, The Book of Intimate Grammar, as well as children's books, and a play. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    April 11, 2005
    Love has many guises in these two novellas—but it never looks like something you'd aspire to. Israeli writer Grossman is more interested in its perverse forms—jealousy, egocentrism, obsession, voyeurism—but also the ways in which we invent the people we love through fantasy. In "Frenzy," Shaul, a respectable academic, feverishly stalks his wife, Elisheva, convinced she has been having an affair with another man for 10 years. He asks his sister-in-law, Esti, to drive him across the country in the middle of the night in search of Elisheva, and as he describes a decade of watching and waiting and imagining every last detail of Elisheva's betrayal, Esti finds herself getting pulled into Shaul's obsession. In "In Another Life," a writer named Rotem visits her estranged mother, Nili, now dying from cancer. Rotem shares her latest story, a fictional exploration of an episode from her childhood in which her mother is the central character. As Rotem reads aloud, Grossman switches back and forth from Rotem's story to the present moment. The reader sees Nili, and then sees her as Rotem imagines her, while the narrative hovers somewhere between memory and fiction. Grossman (See Under: Love
    , etc.) can capture surprising psychological depth in a single sentence, and here he opens up whole lives on every page. Agent, Deborah Harris
    .

  • John Leonard, Harper's Magazine

    "There isn't a more interesting novelist in the West today... If the Middle East has broken David Grossman's mighty heart, a howl is all that's left for the rest of us."

  • Amy Wilentz, The Los Angeles Times

    "We should all thank heaven that the world has such writers in it... Grossman's sympathetic and perceptive writing goes to the very heart of the most complicated dilemmas in the Arab-Israeli crisis."
Title Information+
  • Publisher
    Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • OverDrive Read
    Release date:
  • EPUB eBook
    Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
  • Copyright Protection (DRM) required by the Publisher may be applied to this title to limit or prohibit printing or copying. File sharing or redistribution is prohibited. Your rights to access this material expire at the end of the lending period. Please see Important Notice about Copyrighted Materials for terms applicable to this content.

Status bar:

You've reached your checkout limit.

Visit your Checkouts page to manage your titles.

Close

You already have this title checked out.

Want to go to your Checkouts?

Close

Recommendation Limit Reached.

You've reached the maximum number of titles you can recommend at this time. You can recommend up to 0 titles every 0 day(s).

Close

Sign in to recommend this title.

Recommend your library consider adding this title to the Digital Collection.

Close

Enhanced Details

Close
Close

Limited availability

Availability can change throughout the month based on the library's budget.

is available for days.

Once playback starts, you have hours to view the title.

Close

Permissions

Close

The OverDrive Read format of this eBook has professional narration that plays while you read in your browser. Learn more here.

Close

Holds

Total holds:


Close

Restricted

Some format options have been disabled. You may see additional download options outside of this network.

Close

MP3 audiobooks are only supported on macOS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) through 10.14 (Mojave). Learn more about MP3 audiobook support on Macs.

Close

Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.

Close

Device Compatibility Notice

The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.

Close

Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen

Close

You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.

To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.

Close

Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.

There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.

Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.

Close

You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.

Close

This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.

Close

An unexpected error has occurred.

If this problem persists, please contact support.

Close

Close

NOTE: Barnes and Noble® may change this list of devices at any time.

Close
Buy it now
and help our library WIN!
Her Body Knows
Her Body Knows
Two Novellas
David Grossman
Choose a retail partner below to buy this title for yourself.
A portion of this purchase goes to support your library.
Close
Close

There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.

Close
Barnes & Noble Sign In |   Sign In

You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.

If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."

You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.

Accept to ContinueCancel