Magnificent ... The book does what all good stories should do – it unfolds both minutely and epically at the same time. It does not moralise, and yet it does not shirk its responsibility to knock our sense of comfortable balance all to hell ... Horrific ... The nature of injustice is such that we may not always see it in our own times, but history will hold us accountable. That’s why Thrall’s book, and those like it, are so important.
He weaves scenes from the aftermath of the accident with passages of historical context that explain the physical and legal boundaries that shape the lives of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem ... Thrall is one of the few writers who can combine vivid storytelling with in-depth analysis of the occupation without resorting to political throat-clearing, and throughout the book he maintains an unwavering, cleareyed focus on the broken political system ... At times, the book can feel repetitive, especially when Thrall restarts the day from various vantage points ... A grim narrative.
...a compelling work of nonfiction, a book that is by turns deeply affecting and, in its concluding chapters, as tense as a thriller. It takes a single episode and, by gathering the testimony of everyone involved, even tangentially, it constructs not only a meticulously detailed account of that one event but perhaps the clearest picture yet of the reality of daily life in the occupied territories ... The culprit, in other words, is the occupation, a 56-year political project that is exacting a terrible human cost. This is not news, but Thrall’s achievement is to make us see it – and feel its injustice – afresh.
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is an important book, and one that closely examines the intricacies of injustice perpetrated on the Palestinian population by the Israeli government, its systems and plenty of its Jewish citizens. Yet it does so with an almost clinical remove ... It was difficult, at times, to grasp the sheer horror of what Israeli annexation and strategy have done to Palestinian people and lands when there was no real pathos coming from the author’s narration. Dispassionate reporting won’t protect the book from the political pushback it will receive from Zionists and their supporters. Still, it’s clear that Thrall cares deeply about the topic.
It told, in clear-eyed, unsentimental prose, the story of a terrible accident in the West Bank ... A long and powerful book ... Brims over with just the sort of compassion and understanding that is needed at a time like this.
The author writes coolly, carefully, without rhetoric or invective. He does not claim neutrality — the daily humiliations of Israeli occupation thud like a drumbeat on every page — but he avoids arm-twisting reportage or cartoonish history. No one portrayed here lacks humanity or complexity ... At any time, this scrupulous, salutary work would strike readers hard. Just now, it arrives in a cultural landscape shredded by assumptions that sympathy and understanding run only down a single route.
A penetrating, wide-ranging, heart-wrenching exploration of life in Palestine under Israeli occupation. I know of no other writing on Israel and Palestine that reaches this depth of perception and understanding.
Thrall doesn’t mince words. He writes openly, eloquently, clearly, and directly, providing a detailed account of life under colonization ... A Day in the Life of Abed Salama grips you from start to finish. By the end, the reader is left angry, enervated, and pained. Thrall pulls off a very complicated feat by weaving much technical information on the crushing effect of Israel’s slow takeover of land, the maze of military checkpoints, and the bureaucracy that divides Palestinians from one another into a deft and engaging narrative.
Through the painstaking accumulation of detail after detail [Thrall] enables the reader who has never been to Palestine to experience life under Israeli occupation ... Every Palestinian in A Day in the Life of Abed Salama displays resistance in its most common form: under the rule of a ruthless occupying military power you continue to live; to live as a human being, as part of a community and a culture.
The genius of Thrall’s book lies in its ability to unearth the lives, aspirations, and sentiments of his protagonists ... The tragedy that Nathan Thrall depicts is, in the first instance, a family tragedy ... But it is above all the tragedy of a society under occupation, without freedom of movement, rights of citizenship, or the ability to breathe. In this regard, A Day in the Life challenges us to rethink the designation of the crash as an "accident," a term that suggests happenstance and chance.
Riveting ... An eye-opening and empathetic analysis of a profoundly personal tragedy. This deeply researched book is insightful as the author reveals the complex issues faced by Palestinians.
Thrall’s taut, journalistic account of Abed Salama’s daylong search to discover what has become of his son is an agonizing, infuriating, heartbreaking indictment of Israel’s occupation and how it makes ordinary life for Palestinians all but impossible ... an unforgettable and devastating symphony of pain and outrage and a demand for responsibility.
A unique window onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in this captivating profile of Abed Salama ... He also dives into the past, recounting Salama’s and the rescuers’ life stories and the history of the construction of the barrier wall. It’s a heart-wrenching portrait of an unequal society.