Michael Oren’s The Night Archer and Other Short Stories: As in Life, They Don’t Always Live Happily Ever After

Dec 2, 2020 by Sue Weston

By Sue Weston

It should surprise no one that The Night Archer and Other Stories (Post Hill Press), former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s first published foray into the world of short fiction, would encompass various takes on experiences gleaned from the author’s own wide and varied career as a soldier, statesman, historian, and parliamentarian.

While the fifty short stories in this collection tell tales that fuse the themes of fantasy, war, death, and dignity, Mr. Oren has no difficulties crisscrossing genres as he explores the outer bounds of imagination and artistic freedom, exposing a kaleidoscope of human emotions and experiences.

In his own words, Mr. Oren, already a best-selling, award-winning author of three acclaimed non-fictional historical analyses, aims in his fiction to achieve the opposite of history, to be “concise and audacious, structured yet wild, American in… candor and Israeli in… zeal, yet always paradoxically Jewish.”

His versatility as a storyteller is immediately apparent as the storylines change wildly from tale to tale. The only common thread is the author’s imagination.

In one story, he looks at the eighth day, after the world is created, and presents G-d as the self-satisfied Creator looking to affirm Himself, only to be confronted by Satan who warns, “Not so fast.” In two short pages, the dialogue leads to a contemplation on the creation of good and evil.

Another, “Made to Order,” is a love story that explores relationships and sees the need to control as one force working against another, each shaping the other as they rub.

Mr. Oren seems equally comfortable creating protagonists who are men, women, or children, young or old, and set in the past, present, or future. Often, his stories end with an unexpected twist and glimpse at truth, such as the ghost story which recognizes that “[i]t’s the living who haunt the dead.”

Many of his stories Jewish themed including an Israeli archeologist, a teenager at a Passover seder, an Israeli politician, and a Holocaust survivor. Without breaking stride, Oren introduces a wide range of characters, and circumstances with his clear, crisp writing style that provides sufficient detail to fully involve the reader and leads to an unexpected end.

Do not expect stories woven with Disneyesque whimsy. Oren does not write for children or those looking for easy answers. Most of his stories deal with philosophic questions, underpinning the struggles and complexities of life, and, like life, these short tales often do not end happily ever after.