The Red Balcony
  • Published: 21 February 2023
  • ISBN: 9780805243697
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $65.00

The Red Balcony

A Novel

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Based on actual events, a gripping novel of sex, love, history and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandatory Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A Palestine Affair

"The story of what is arguably Israel’s foundational murder trial—a tale of multiple identities and loyalties." —Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus

Based on actual events, a gripping novel of sex, love, history and justice in the tinderbox of British Mandatory Palestine, by the acclaimed author of A Palestine Affair

"The story of what is arguably Israel’s foundational murder trial—a tale of multiple identities and loyalties." —Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus

“Pleases on several levels: as an adventure tale, a star-crossed romance and a detailed period piece.” —The Wall Street Journal 

It’s 1933, and Ivor Castle, Oxford-educated and Jewish, arrives in Palestine to take up a position as assistant to the defense counsel in the trial of the two men accused of murdering Haim Arlosoroff, a leader of the Jewish community in Palestine whose efforts to get Jews out of Hitler’s Germany and into Palestine may have been controversial enough to get him killed.
 
While preparing for the trial, Ivor, an innocent to the politics of the case, falls into bed and deeply in love with Tsiona, a free-spirited artist who happened to sketch the accused men in a Jerusalem café on the night of the murder and may be a key witness. As Ivor learns the hard way about the violence simmering just beneath the surface of British colonial rule, Jonathan Wilson dazzles with his mastery of the sun-drenched landscape and the subtleties of the warring agendas among the Jews, Arabs, and British.
 
And as he travels between the crime scene in Tel Aviv and the mazelike streets of Jerusalem, between the mounting mysteries surrounding this notorious case and clandestine lovemaking in Tsiona’s studio, Ivor must discover where his heart lies: whether he cares more for the law or the truth, whether he is more an Englishman or a Jew, and where and with whom he truly belongs.
  • Published: 21 February 2023
  • ISBN: 9780805243697
  • Imprint: Knopf US
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $65.00
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Praise for The Red Balcony

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR JONATHAN WILSON'S The Red Balcony

“Wilson illuminates life in Palestine under the British Mandate in this engrossing legal drama . . . Vivid atmosphere animates Wilson’s story of expatriates, in the manner of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet and Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. With a mix of intrigue, romance, and 1930s realpolitik, the author immerses readers in Ivor’s initial confusion and growing sense of moral clarity. Historical fiction fans are in for a treat.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Jonathan Wilson’s beautifully paced Palestine novel kept me reading through the night. The Red Balcony extends Wilson’s previous novels set in the region, this time through the story of what is arguably Israel’s foundational murder trial—a tale of multiple identities and loyalties that casts a shadow over the future State even while providing an eye-widening view of its author’s bright and fully ripened achievement.”
—Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of The Netanyahus

“Brimming with intrigue and atmosphere, The Red Balcony is a captivating mystery set amid the tensions of British mandate Palestine, where allegiances are always shifting and the shadow of history looms.”
—Tova Mirvis, author of The Book of Separation

“Jonathan Wilson is spectacularly witty and wise, deeply generous and intelligent, and his novel The Red Balcony is extraordinary. Intimate and epic, character-driven and a flat-out page-turner, the book manages to be a work of meticulously investigated historical fiction that never feels weighed down by its research; what’s more, it is enviably prescient. In short, this is one of the best books I’ve read in years—I can’t stop thinking about it. A gorgeous new novel by one of our very finest writers.”
—Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans