For the first few weeks after Octo­ber 7 2023, I did not write a sin­gle word of fic­tion. I was more than halfway through a new nov­el at the time, but all desire to con­tin­ue the sto­ry was extin­guished. Real­i­ty had me in its mor­bid grip and no escape into fic­tion was possible.

For two days fol­low­ing the attack, I spent most of my time jump­ing from one news web­site to the next, read­ing the same reports writ­ten with slight­ly dif­fer­ent words. I was utter­ly sub­merged in the cat­a­stro­phe that had engulfed Israel.

Then I got an email from Jew­ish Book Coun­cil. They were reach­ing out to offer a place for Israeli writ­ers to share their thoughts and feel­ings about the events of Octo­ber 7 and the war that followed.

As a writer of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, I know how impor­tant such per­son­al accounts are to cap­tur­ing the lived expe­ri­ence dur­ing water­shed moments. They pro­vide a win­dow through which one can learn about the effects large events had on ordi­nary peo­ple. They offer a per­son­al angle that his­to­ry text­books often lack. I use such accounts when I con­duct research for my his­tor­i­cal fic­tion series, fol­low­ing pro­tag­o­nist Adam Lapid as he solves mys­ter­ies. I felt it was vital that I now con­tribute my own account to the his­tor­i­cal record.

Fol­low­ing this invi­ta­tion from JBC, I quick­ly wrote an essay about my own expe­ri­ences in the days fol­low­ing Octo­ber 7. That essay was pub­lished just days after I wrote it and is called ​“War Report.”

I was sur­prised by how easy it had been to write that piece, despite the grim sub­ject mat­ter. I had a pow­er­ful need that I had been unaware of to put my thoughts onto paper, to share them with others.

I had no plans to write more essays, but in the days that fol­lowed, I found myself dri­ven to do so. I wrote about attend­ing the funer­al of a local army offi­cer who died in bat­tle on Octo­ber 7; in anoth­er piece I described vol­un­teer­ing as part of a civil­ian guard unit that patrolled my town; I reflect­ed on expe­ri­enc­ing my first, and so far only, rock­et attack alarm in this war. 

And, with­out expect­ing it, the writ­ing of these per­son­al essays paved my return to writ­ing fic­tion. Per­haps, I thought, since I had been able to write these well-received essays, it was time to return to fic­tion as well.

I opened the man­u­script of my nov­el-in-progress and grad­u­al­ly sub­merged myself in the sto­ry I was craft­ing. A part of my mind remained riv­et­ed to the awful events occur­ring in 2023 Israel, but anoth­er part was trav­el­ing back in time to Israel in 1952. Here I walked along­side my fic­tion­al detec­tive Adam Lapid, as he tra­versed the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv when Israel was but four years old.

Soon, some­thing unex­pect­ed hap­pened. The first few days of ten­ta­tive progress gave way to weeks of furi­ous writ­ing. Line fol­lowed line on the screen of my lap­top with sur­pris­ing alacrity. Scene after scene unfold­ed. The num­ber of pages rose like the tide. My char­ac­ters drew me into the dra­ma of the sto­ry and away from the ter­ri­ble cir­cum­stances of war and suf­fer­ing around me. 

Even before the events of Octo­ber 7, I’d found that this nov­el was dif­fi­cult to write; for many months pri­or to the war, my progress had been dis­mal. And for a time, I wasn’t sure I would ever fin­ish it. But now, with the storm of war around me, the words flowed like a flood­ed riv­er. My char­ac­ters took on lives of their own. They made choic­es that sur­prised me, tak­ing the nov­el in dif­fer­ent direc­tions than I had anticipated.

Maybe part of it was an escape, a respite need­ed from the real­i­ty of Israel at war. Or per­haps I need­ed that con­nec­tion to an Israel of a dif­fer­ent time. A coun­try still recov­er­ing from a ter­ri­ble war of inde­pen­dence. Per­haps writ­ing about that coun­try, and know­ing that it sur­vived and thrived, instilled with­in me hope for the future of Israel.

What­ev­er it was, I rode that wave of words for a few weeks all the way to the final page. And when the book was done, I won­dered how the nov­el would have been dif­fer­ent had I fin­ished it in times of peace. Although it is a mys­tery nov­el, with vio­lence and dan­ger lurk­ing among its pages, I’ve heard from read­ers that it brought them com­fort in this time of fear and uncer­tain­ty. Just like it had brought me.

That nov­el is In That Sleep of Death, the eighth book of my Adam Lapid series. I am now writ­ing the ninth book and I hope that by the time I fin­ish it, Israel and its neigh­bors will be at peace.