Tehila Hakimi’s debut novel “Hunting in America,” masterfully translated from Hebrew by Joanna Chen, emerges as a startling meditation on displacement, assimilation, and the violence that lurks beneath civilized surfaces. This taut psychological thriller follows an unnamed Israeli woman who relocates to America for work, only to find herself drawn into the ritualistic world of hunting—a journey that becomes both literal and metaphorical as she navigates the treacherous terrain of identity, belonging, and survival.
A Narrator Lost Between Worlds
The protagonist’s anonymity is deliberate and deeply effective. She exists as an everywoman figure, stripped of her Israeli identity markers and struggling to reconstruct herself in American corporate culture. Hakimi’s decision to withhold her name until deep into the narrative creates an unsettling sense of erasure that mirrors the character’s own psychological displacement. We meet her as she learns to moderate her “aggressive” email tone, practice her American smile, and master the subtle art of workplace pleasantries—each adaptation a small death of her former self.
The hunting expeditions with her colleague David begin innocuously enough, but Hakimi skillfully transforms these outings into something far more sinister. The numbered hunting trips—fourteen in total—create a countdown structure that builds inexorable tension. Each expedition reveals new layers of the protagonist’s psychological unraveling while simultaneously showcasing her growing expertise with firearms, a skill that connects her to her military past in Israel.
The Dance of Power and Vulnerability
David emerges as a complex figure who embodies both mentor and predator. His relationship with the narrator oscillates between professional guidance and intimate manipulation, reflecting the broader power dynamics at play in her American experience. The revelation of his tragic past—the accidental shooting death of his son Tom—adds devastating depth to his character while casting new shadows over his hunting expertise and his relationship with his wife Miriam.
Hakimi handles the developing affair between David and the narrator with remarkable restraint. Their physical encounters are depicted through fragmented scenes that emphasize emotional disconnection rather than passion. The hotel pool scene, where David watches the narrator shower through the bathroom door, establishes a voyeuristic dynamic that permeates their entire relationship. She performs femininity and vulnerability while he observes from a position of power—a dynamic that mirrors her broader experience of being watched and evaluated in corporate America.
Corporate Predators and Personal Prey
The workplace dynamics serve as a parallel hunting ground where the protagonist must navigate different forms of predation. Her job insecurity, triggered by organizational restructuring and the threat of forced repatriation to Israel, creates a constant state of vigilance. The CEO’s attempts to eliminate her position while offering hollow reassurances about her value to the company expose the calculated cruelty of corporate power structures.
Hakimi’s depiction of office politics is particularly sharp. The protagonist’s meticulous documentation of emails, contracts, and performance reviews reveals her understanding that survival in this environment requires careful evidence-gathering. Her consultation with a labor lawyer about using pregnancy as protection from termination adds another layer to the novel’s exploration of how women must weaponize their own bodies for survival.
The Weight of Translation and Cultural Displacement
Joanna Chen’s translation deserves special recognition for preserving the protagonist’s linguistic displacement. The text captures the exhaustion of constantly code-switching between languages and cultural expectations. Small details—like the protagonist’s struggle to find the English word “magazine” when discussing rifle components—illuminate the daily labor of living in a second language. Chen maintains the spare, almost clinical tone of the Hebrew original while ensuring the English text flows naturally for American readers.
The hunting terminology becomes a new vocabulary of belonging, but also of violence. As the protagonist masters terms like “safe zone,” “kill shot,” and “bag limit,” she’s simultaneously learning the language of American masculinity and the precise vocabulary of death. This linguistic education parallels her broader cultural assimilation, suggesting that true belonging requires adopting not just new customs but new forms of violence.
Psychological Deterioration and Moral Ambiguity
The novel’s final act accelerates into genuine horror as the protagonist’s grip on reality becomes increasingly tenuous. Her solo hunting expedition, where she believes she may have shot a person rather than an animal, represents the complete breakdown of boundaries between human and animal, predator and prey, self and other. Hakimi refuses to clarify whether this incident actually occurred or exists only in the narrator’s fractured psyche, leaving readers to grapple with fundamental questions about perception and responsibility.
The protagonist’s physical deterioration—her shrinking appetite, weight loss, and growing isolation—mirrors her psychological dissolution. Her body becomes another site of violence, wasting away as she loses connection to basic human needs. The detail about her “tomb” versus “womb” wordplay reveals how thoroughly she has internalized themes of death and barrenness.
Technical Mastery and Narrative Innovation
Hakimi’s background as an award-winning poet is evident in her precise, economical prose. Each sentence carries weight, and seemingly mundane details accumulate into powerful symbolic networks. The recurring motifs of cartridge casings, blood in snow, and the crosshairs of rifle sights create a visual vocabulary that reinforces the novel’s themes of violence and targeting.
The numbered hunting expeditions structure creates both forward momentum and a sense of inevitable conclusion. This counting system transforms the narrative into its own kind of hunt, with readers tracking the protagonist’s psychological journey through carefully marked stages. The final expedition, marked simply as “X,” suggests both an unknown variable and a target marked for elimination.
Cultural Commentary and Universal Themes
While grounded in the specific experience of Israeli-American immigration, the novel speaks to broader themes of displacement and belonging in an increasingly globalized world. The protagonist’s struggle to maintain her identity while adapting to American corporate culture resonates with anyone who has felt pressure to reshape themselves for acceptance. Her relationship with hunting—initially a path toward belonging that becomes a source of isolation—reflects the double-edged nature of assimilation.
The novel also functions as a subtle critique of American gun culture and corporate masculinity. The ease with which the protagonist accesses firearms and the casual attitude toward hunting accidents reveal societal normalizations of violence. The workplace’s cutthroat dynamics mirror the hunting ground’s kill-or-be-killed mentality, suggesting that American culture breeds predatory behaviors across multiple spheres.
Minor Weaknesses and Areas for Growth
While largely successful, the novel occasionally suffers from its own restraint. Some readers may find the protagonist’s emotional detachment frustrating, particularly during crucial dramatic moments. The deliberate ambiguity around the final hunting incident, while thematically appropriate, may leave some readers feeling unsatisfied with the lack of resolution.
Additionally, secondary characters like Joan and Miriam feel somewhat underdeveloped, existing primarily to reflect aspects of the protagonist’s experience rather than as fully realized individuals. This approach serves the novel’s focus on psychological interiority but sometimes leaves the supporting cast feeling thin.
A Remarkable Debut Achievement
“Hunting in America” establishes Hakimi as a significant new voice in contemporary fiction. Her ability to transform a story about hunting into a profound exploration of identity, violence, and belonging demonstrates remarkable literary sophistication. The novel succeeds both as a taut psychological thriller and as a nuanced examination of the immigrant experience in America.
For readers who appreciate the psychological complexity of authors like Ottessa Moshfegh or the cultural displacement themes explored by writers like Jess Walter, Hakimi’s debut offers similar rewards. The novel joins a growing body of work examining how global migration affects individual identity, while adding its own unique perspective on the violence—both subtle and overt—that shapes American society.
Similar Reading Recommendations
Readers drawn to “Hunting in America” might enjoy:
- “My Education” by Susan Choi – Another exploration of women navigating unfamiliar territories and dangerous attractions
- “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” by Shehan Karunatilaka – For its treatment of violence and cultural displacement
- “Weather” by Jenny Offill – Similar themes of psychological fragmentation and societal breakdown
- “Such a Pretty Girl” by Laura Wiess – Exploring predatory relationships and survival
- “The Vegetarian” by Han Kang – For its examination of women’s bodies as sites of violence and resistance
Hakimi’s “Hunting in America” stands as a remarkable achievement in contemporary fiction, offering readers a haunting portrait of what it means to be hunted—and to hunt—in modern America. This is essential reading for anyone interested in immigration literature, psychological thrillers, or simply powerful storytelling that lingers long after the final page.