Be prepared for more than your just desserts

Four Meals by Meir Shalev (translated by Barbara Harshav) (Canongate, £10, 331pp)

Meir Shalev has an alternative career as a writer of juvenilia. It is apparent in his new novel for adults, the story of a boy with three fathers. Shalev cites Nahum Guttman as a major inspiration. Guttman's speciality was the sting in the tail, the twist of fate that diverts the anticipated happy ending.

His influence is certainly apparent in Four Meals. But there is another more ancient force that vitalises Shalev's work: his homeland, and the text that created it. Writing in The Bible Now, Shalev concentrates on the Book of Esther (the only chapter in the scriptures that fails to mention God), and proposes an alternative deus ex machina: "fate seems to play a major role in the drama". From which we may deduce that fate will also play a major role in Four Meals.

Repeated throughout is a Yiddish proverb, "man makes plans, and God laughs". The folk wisdom is dispensed by Globerman, a cattle dealer. Globerman is one of the book's patriarchal trio; the others being Moshe Rabinovitch and Jacob Sheinfeld. All court Judith, mother of the narrator, and claim the boy as their heir.

The author remains noncommittal. The fact that the boy is legitimised as Rabinovitch proves nothing. His forename is more relevant, being Zayde (or Grandfather). This unlikely appellation is meant to guarantee protection from premature expiry. Apparently, the Angel of Death is a bureaucratic type, likely to be so confused by a baby called Zayde. Even in Israel (the location), superstition seems more useful than religion.

Shalev was born in the same year as his homeland, and raised in Nahalal (the first moshav, or agricultural settlement), between Haifa and the Sea of Galilee. His characters live and die in similar surroundings, as much a part of the landscape as the indigenous Arabs. Indeed, the natural world is so integrated into the text that it sometimes sounds like the Song of Songs (turtle doves are heard in the land).

Zayde spends equal time observing his human and avian neighbours, especially the crows that nest in the eucalyptus tree beyond his house (formerly a cowshed). The modest habitation is owned by the second of Judith's suitors, Moshe Rabinovitch, who wins her long enough to bequeath her son his surname.

The third, Jacob Sheinfeld, is the resident gourmet and archivist; it is while eating the four meals he has lovingly planned that Zayde learns about the village, and his mother's complicated love-life. Jacob's forename is no accident. The novel's Hebrew title, As A Few Days, comes from the mouth of his biblical namesake, who slaved for seven years to win Rachel - worthwhile years which seemed to him merely "as a few days".

Sheinfeld is equally patient, and it seems that his patience will be rewarded. At least this is the opinion of an itinerant Italian, who has convinced Sheinfeld that if he sets wheels in motion by making wedding preparations, the bride will show up. In other words, a pattern can be imposed upon the world, and outcomes predicted.

Pity Sheinfeld didn't remind himself that the Roman Empire - based on a similar mania for order - fell to the barbarians. Nor is it insignificant that the would-be saviour is homosexual, and (by his own admission) incapable of procreative emission. Even so, it seems for a glorious moment that his plan has succeeded. Judith dons her gown, and sets off for the wedding, at which point God decides it's time for a laugh... Rather, fate intervenes, leaving Sheinfeld to dance at his nuptials with an empty dress.

Nor is this fate's only dirty trick. The eucalyptus tree collapses under the weight of alien snow, with fatal consequences. It proves again the arbitrary nature of fate. There is, one supposes, a message in this for Shalev's fellow citizens: blueprints dogmatically followed lead not to inevitable fulfilment, but to unwanted ends. The journey, however, may be as pleasant as the zabaglione Jacob whips up for Zayde.