In the title story of Israeli author Etgar Keret’s newly rereleased collection, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories (Riverhead Books), the driver “would never open the door of the bus for people who were late.” However, the driver veers from this “matter of ideology” when he encounters Eddie, a “really nice guy” who has to catch the bus to meet his date named Happiness. Like the bus driver who didn’t realize his ambition to become God, but was satisfied with his second choice, Keret’s characters are slightly off-kilter, and function in a world where a sandwich and sundries shop is located “smack at the mouth of Hell,” in an Uzbek village, as in “A Souvenir of Hell.” — M.S.
(American Jewish World, 11.6.15)
