Laundry

I feel almost like an archaeologist, chipping away at a widening pit, descending into it, into another room, a maze. I don't understand anything. I didn't know any of it, violating the oath of years of silence. In my family we always screamed the truth in each other's faces. This did not make me any happier, though at least we knew each other's sore points; her family is partitioned, everyone nursing his own pain.

Suzane Adam's 2000 novel Laundry (translated from Hebrew by Becka Mara McKay) has been described as a "psychological thriller," but I'm not sure "thriller" is the right label for it. That word makes me think of a mass-market paperback you'd purchase at CVS along with the shampoo, makeup, and Tylenol. I could be wrong, but to me, Laundry was indeed intensely psychological, but also possessing the depth and lyricism of literary art that transcends mere genre. It is also a tale of the human mind - one that becomes even more disturbing when the reader considers the following: