On the shores of Israel’s Sea of Galilee lies the city of Tiberias, and in Shemi Zarhin’s novel Some Day, it is a place bursting with sexuality and longing for love. Zarhin’s hypnotic writing renders a painfully delicious vision of individual lives behind Israel’s larger national story.

“Petty Business” is a tale of two families, related by marriage, who are shop owners in 1980s Israel. Rarely are middle-aged, petit bourgeois families the protagonists of Israeli literature, but Yirmi Pinkus, who is also a graphic artist known for his humor, delivers a strangely compelling story.