Plot summary

Formerly best-selling novelist Amitai Kariv's career started with a bang: his first four novels were award-winning best sellers. His great sacrifice - no wife, no kids, no life outside of writing - seemed to have paid off. But his next two novels were received less enthusiastically and the following two novels were received with a definite measure of derision. Soon, publishing houses lost interest in his literary output, academic circles dubbed him a mere literary footnote and within a few years, the collective memory of the book reading public declared him extinct. Amitai's inevitable midlife crises was a particularly acute one as at this point his life's work seemed to have amounted to nothing. Desperate times call for desperate measures - the usually aboveboard Amitai felt that he has no choice but to put together a master plan - a perfect crime if you will - that will restore his fame and resurrect his fortune. 2 He puts out an ad seeking an assistant, interviews many qualified applicants but curiously settles on Margo May - a shapely fast talking young woman whose single distinction is the sheer amount of lies and falsehoods he discovers in her resume. Margo becomes Amitai's accomplice, a post-modern and post-feminist very opinionated Galatea to his human wreck version of Pygmalion. She actually moves in with Amitai (who lives in a large delapuiteted mansion, just across a small zoo) in order to make the work-study procces quicker and more intense. Their relationship goes through challenges and somewhat entertaining trials and tribulation but the narrative twists take a wide turn when Amir - a young documentary film director of Palestinian origin, who has studied in Rome and now works for RAI- comes to Israel in order to film a documentary about the discrepancy in narrative between Israeli and Palestinian authors. Amir's chance encounter with Margo generates a possible romance but, even more importantly, exposes a story that is a filmmaker's dream. Moreover, Amir just happens to know an aging Italian movie star who would kill for a comeback. This cinematic reinvention of "Amitai" and his story would make this comeback possible. Amir realizes that this fantastic wedlock between literature, cinema, romance and mystery - all based on this true story - are the fodder great art is made of. If he can decipher Amiti's masterplan, he will have a vehicle that will carry him to success. Margo has great ambitions as well. Amir can facilitate them but Amitai is sure to foil. Just who far will Amiti go in order to have his day in the sun? The plot swings from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to Rome and back. Startling revelations are made. Amitai seems to be in control, but Margo is far from being guiled. She knows that at some point she will have to tell Amir the truth about herself. She also knows Amitai will shortly take exception to anything that might put his scheme in danger. This Danse Macabre between Amitai, Margo and Amir reaches its climax when Margo finally discovers Amitai's plan. Her equally daring counterplot will change their lives forever.