Ask for a Convertible Stories Author:Danit Brown Ask For A Convertible is a wonderfully assured debut that ponders what it means to be Israeli, to be American, or a little bit of both. In these connected stories, Danit Brown introduces Osnat Greenberg: a slightly fatalistic, darkly funny, and utterly winning heroine who is struggling to find her place in the world. — In the 1980's, Osnat mo... more »ves with her American father and Israeli mother from Tel Aviv to Michigan. She's leaving behind security threats and a crazy grandmother, but entering a world where she is doomed to never fit in. Her father absolutely hated everything about life in Israel; her mother absolutely hates everything about life in America.
Osnat's best friend and sort-of-boyfriend, Sanjay, Indian by birth, instructs her on the "arts" of animation; later, as Osnat moves into her twenties, a series of boyfriends all named Chris misguidedly attempt to instill her with holiday cheer. An Israeli soldier visiting the United States makes Osnat realize that it's time to face what she believes is her cowardly past. But it's her friend Harriet, an American who as a child practiced holding her breath just in case the Nazis took over the Midwest, who somehow manages to show Osnat the meaning of home.« less