Last year, we were excit­ed to fea­ture Lore Segal — of whom we’re ador­ing fans here at Jew­ish Book Coun­cil — and her newest nov­el Half the King­dom, which was pub­lished in hard­cov­er by Melville House in Octo­ber 2013. We were even lucky enough to inter­view her! Now we come with more good news from the Lore Segal front: in hon­or of last week’s paper­back release of Half the King­dom (get excit­ed book clubs…), we not only have an excerpt from the book to share with you, but we’re also giv­ing away FIVE copies of the book. If you want to get your hands on one, it’s quite easy, just enter here. The win­ners will be select­ed at ran­dom on Novem­ber 18th. [Note: This con­test has now ended.]

The below excerpt (pages 116 – 120 of Half the King­dom) has been reprint­ed with the per­mis­sion of Melville House.

Ilka Weiss lay on the sofa with her legs up. She asked for a blan­ket. Lit­tle David helped, impa­tient­ly, to tuck it around his grandmother’s legs. He said, ​“So, go on.”

Mag­gie said, ​“Let Grand­moth­er rest,” but Ilka said, ​“So the next time King David went down to fight those Philistines …” and Mag­gie said, ​“Mom, Jeff and I stay away from the fighting.”

“Mom­my,” said lit­tle David, ​“you can go. And take Ste­vie. Ste­vie, stop it.” Baby Steven’s newest skill was turn­ing pages and he was prac­tic­ing on the King James Bible on Grandmother’s lap.

“Not to wor­ry. I know the sto­ry in my head. But let’s let Mom­my and Ste­vie stay, because we’re com­ing to the baaaad stuff.”

“Go on,” the lit­tle boy said.

“King David,” went on Ilka, ​“was a great sol­dier, the sol­dier of sol­diers, only he was grow­ing old. King David was tired. His spear was an encum­brance.” Grand­moth­er Ilka demon­strat­ed the dif­fi­cul­ty with which the aging king raised his weapon. ​“His armor was too heavy for him. Climb­ing the hill, he had to reach for one lit­tle low bush after anoth­er because his bal­ance wasn’t what it used to be. He watched with a thrill of envy — with a thrill and with envy — how his young sol­diers ran ahead while he stood and just breathed. Couldn’t tell if it was his hia­tus her­nia, his heart, or an attack of anx­i­ety be- cause they all three felt the same.”

“And,” lit­tle David prompted. 

“And Ish­bi-benob, a Philis­tine of the race of giants, was wear­ing his new armor. His spear weighed three hun­dred shekels.” Grand­moth­er light­ly swung the idea of its super­hu­man weight above her head, ​“and he was going to strike King David down when — Ste­vie if you don’t leave King James alone, Grand­moth­er can’t check the name of the fel­low — here he is in verse 17: Abishai. He came and struck Ish­bi-benob to death.”

“Mom!”

“Sor­ry,” Ilka said. ​“And King David’s men said to King David, ​‘You’re becom­ing a lia­bil­i­ty. Next war, you’re stay­ing home.’ And there was anoth­er war …” Ilka looked apolo­get­i­cal­ly at her daugh­ter, ​“and there was anoth­er giant. He had six fin­gers on each hand and six toes on each foot — which is how many dig­its, quick!”

“Twen­ty-four.”

“Very good. And this giant with his twen­ty-four dig­its just laughed at King David, and mocked him.”

“Why?” asked lit­tle David in a tone of strong disapproval.

“Why? Why indeed!” said his grand­moth­er. ​“Because King David was old? Because he was a Hebrew? Just because he was on the oth­er team? But King David’s nephew—his name was Jonathan — came run­ning, and Jonathan knocked that mock­ing, laugh­ing giant down just a lit­tle bit. Knocked the wind out of him.”

Lit­tle David sug­gest­ed, ​“They should have tried talk­ing it out,” in which he was going to remem­ber being rein­forced by a hug from his moth­er, and his grandmother’s kiss on the top of his head, for both women were against strik­ing peo­ple dead, and the younger believed there was some­thing one could be doing about it. 

“They should have talked,” Grand­moth­er Ilka agreed, ​“with­out pre­con­di­tion. And now,” she went on, ​“King David got real­ly, real­ly old and strick­en in years and they brought him a blan­ket and anoth­er and more blan­kets but he could not and could not get warm.”

“How come?” asked lit­tle David.

“Because he was old,” Grand­moth­er Ilka said. ​“And King David’s men said to him, ​“Let us go out and find you a beau­ti­ful young girl to lie with you.”

“What for?” asked lit­tle David.

“To make him warm. The blan­kets hadn’t done any good. So they sent out through­out all the land and found a beau­ti­ful young girl. Her name was Abishag the Shu­nam­mite and they brought her to the king.”

“Did she want to come?” asked David. 

“A very trou­bling ques­tion,” said his grandmother. 

“I always thought it was hor­ri­ble,” said his mother. 

“Yes, it was! Well, hold on, now. You know,” she said to David, ​“how your mom­my had to rush me to Emer­gency, and then I was in the hos­pi­tal, and had to go for rehab, and your mom­my brought me back, and last night I had to go to Emer­gency again, and your dad­dy is com­ing in half an hour to take you and Ste­vie home, and Mom­my is going to stay and take care of me? Maybe Abishag was one of those peo­ple who stay and take care of peo­ple, like your mom­my, because she is good, which is a great mys­tery to the rest of us.”

“Mom, don’t,” said Mag­gie irri­ta­bly. ​“I do it because I want to.”

“Which,” said Ilka, con­tin­u­ing to address the child, ​“is anoth­er mys­tery: Good peo­ple don’t think they are being good when they like doing a good thing. If they did it with grit­ted teeth, then they would think that it was good! Isn’t that fun­ny of them?”

The lit­tle boy was lis­ten­ing to the old woman with an alert, bemused look.

“And Abishag,” con­tin­ued his grand­moth­er, ​“was young and beau­ti­ful and she cared for King David.”

“And made him warm.” 

“No.”

Intrigued? Want to con­tin­ue read­ing? Buy a copy of Half the King­dom here.