Incomplete Families

Throughout the novel, an assortment of characters deal with incomplete families, whether it is through a lack of a father or an absent mother, and this incomplete nature has an effect on how they struggle with different challenges they are presented with in their lives. The character who struggles the most with an incomplete family is Joseph, Shira's son, who is not only subject to an inattentive mother, but is also unclear as to who his father really is. Faced with the ideal image of Marc Solomon's family in America, Joseph, as the child of separated parents, must contend with his parents' shortcomings. Though Marc Solomon's idyllic family image is deconstructed and shown to be a hollow dream rife with mental illness and malaise, it is still a source of pride for people in the kibbutz, and something Shira is lacking. Similarly, Keren and Guy...