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WORK TITLE: The Coincidence Makers
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 9/1/1978
WEBSITE: https://www.yoavblum.co.il/
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: Israel
NATIONALITY: Israeli
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born September 1, 1978; married; children: one daughter.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, short-story writer, and software developer.
WRITINGS
Also author of the novels The Guide to the Coming Days and The Unswitchable. The Coincidence Makers has been translated into more than ten languages.
The Coincidence Makers has been optioned for film by Epic Pictures.
SIDELIGHTS
Yoav Blum is an Israeli writer and novelist. He works as a programmer and software developer. He is the author of three books in Hebrew: The Coincidence Makers, The Guide to the Coming Days, and The Unswitchable. He has been writing since he was a small child, he reported on the Yoav Blum website. Now, “I try to write books I like to read. An imaginary reader inside my mind sits on my shoulder and gives me notes during the process,” Blum stated on his website.
The Unswitchable concerns a future society where each member of the population owns a high-tech bracelet that lets them switch bodies with anyone else. Only one man refuses to ever make this switch. The Guide to the Coming Days focuses on a man in a bookstore reading the back cover of a book. Only it turns out that the book is about him, and is urgently needed by him. He has also been followed by someone who may be a threat. Reading the book, it becomes clear, is a matter of life and death.
The Coincidence Makers is Blum’s first book to be translated into English. In the book, Blum “gamely tackles the quandary of fate versus free will, putting his own playful spin on one of humanity’s biggest philosophical conundrums,” commented Stephenie Harrison in a BookPage review. The story concerns three otherwise ordinary people who have a strange metaphysical task: they “create and carry out coincidences that are designed to spark significant changes and sometimes even alter history,” commented Jessica Steinberg, writing in the Times of Israel. In a Locus review, Paul Di Filippo observed: “I will tell you now that you will never foresee what happens in any of the book, either the love story portions or the coincidence-manufacturing portions. Blum is that sly and devilish.”
The three people at the heart of the book are each seasoned operatives in the secretive supernatural organization that manufactures coincidences. Guy is the first of them, someone who seems to be content with what he does and who doesn’t question. Emily has some doubts about the value and legitimacy of their tasks. Eric is sometimes arrogant and unpleasant, and to have a “let the chips fall where they may” attitude. They have been employed as coincidence makers for three years, having once existed as someone’s imaginary friend. They have completed all the mandatory training and education they need to make even small and seemingly insignificant events meaningful.
Guy, Emily, and Eric know each other, but work independently and with little interference from the main organization. They get their assignments in envelopes slid under their doors, never to see or interact with the messenger. Sometimes they have some interactions with their direct supervisor, an individual known as the General, but they are mostly on their own to devise the circumstance behind the events they need to influence.
So far, their tasks have been relatively small and easy to perform—leading someone to quit a job so that he can discover a talent for music that he didn’t know he possessed, for example, or take a minor action that will, in time, have a well-planned result. When Guy receives a difficult and morally questionable assignment, however, his concept of his role as a coincidence maker, as well as those of his friends, will be tested in a powerful way that could change all of their lives. At the same time, their loyalties toward and feelings for each other will be challenged by unexpected emotional connections.
A Publishers Weekly contributor called The Coincidence Makers a “clever mix of fantasy and mystery.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews found it to be a “smart, unpredictable, and heartfelt adventure story about the agents of luck.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BookPage, March, 2018, Stephenie Harrison, review of The Coincidence Makers, p. 22.
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2016, review of The Coincidence Makers.
Locus, March 28, 2018, Paul Di Filippo, review of The Coincidence Makers.
Publishers Weekly, January 15, 2018, review of The Coincidence Makers, p. 41.
Times of Israel, March 7, 2018, Jessica Steinberg, “Israeli Book The Coincidence Makers to Be Adapted for Big Screen.”
ONLINE
Yoav Blum website, http://www.yoavblum.co.il (June 20, 2018).
Yoav Blum is an international bestselling author and software developer.
His first three books became instant Israeli bestsellers.
The Coincidence Makers, his first US novel, will be translated into over ten languages.
He currently lives in Israel with his wife and daughter.
When he is not writing (literature or code) he contemplates what he’ll do when he grows up.
Israeli book ‘The Coincidence Makers’ to be adapted for big screen
Yoav Blum's sci-fi romance about 3 people who change history being made into film by US screenwriter Richard Friedenberg of 'A River Runs Through It' fame
By Jessica Steinberg
7 March 2018, 6:46 pm 0
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Yoav Blum's bestseller 'The Coincidence Makers' has just been published in English and is being optioned for a film (Courtesy US Macmillan)
Local bestseller “The Coincidence Makers” by Israeli author Yoav Blum is being adapted for the big screen by American screenwriter Richard Friedenberg, best known for his Oscar-nominated screenplay of Robert Redford’s 1991 drama “A River Runs Through It.”
Friedenberg is teaming up with award-winning Israeli-American writer Micky Levy, according to Epic Pictures, which is developing the project as well as a television series created by Blum.
The bestselling sci-fi romance is about three ordinary people who create and carry out coincidences that are designed to spark significant changes and sometimes even alter history.
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Shaked Berenson, Epic’s co-founder, first read the book while visiting family in Israel and told “The Hollywood Reporter” he couldn’t put it down.
The book has been translated into 11 languages, including English.
I wrote my first book when I was 6. It was 8 handwritten pages about two dogs and a cat, alongside some terrible drawings. I cast myself as one of the characters and, naturally, made that character the smartest. The cover was made from blue cardboard and the whole book had many typos.
It’s been a long road since. A lot of short stories, bad poems, scribbled notes…
My first novel – The Coincidence Makers – was published in Hebrew at the end of 2011. Moving from short stories to novels taught me a lot about what I could learn about myself after being immersed in writing for a long period.
The Coincidence Makers became an Israeli bestseller, and so did my next two books – The Guide to the Coming Days and The Unswitchable. I learn something from each one of my books, from each journey. But most importantly, I learned that each book has a life of its own. Like a child that leaves home—my books are both my own and grow independently. Readers interpret them in new ways—teaching me about myself, and them. It’s such a delight.
I try to write books I like to read. An imaginary reader inside my mind sits on my shoulder and gives me notes during the process. I like writing about realistic worlds with a twist, about being human, about fate, free will, the way we define ourselves and the isolation and friendships that define us.
At the end of the day, I like to imagine. That’s the best part of what I do. Writing is just the result of trying to give life to my thoughts outside my head.
Yoav Blum is an international bestselling author and software developer. His first three books became instant Israeli bestsellers. The Coincidence Makers, his debut, will be translated into more than ten languages. He currently lives in Israel with his wife and two daughters. When he is not writing (literature or code) he contemplates what he’ll do when he grows up.
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THE COINCIDENCE MAKERS
Stephenie Harrison
BookPage. (Mar. 2018): p22.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
Full Text:
THE COINCIDENCE MAKERS By Yoav Blum St. Martin's $26.99, 304 pages ISBN 9781250146113 Audio, eBook available
DEBUT FICTION
If you've ever told someone (or been told) that "everything happens for a reason," you need The Coincidence Makers. In his ambitious and genre-bending debut, Yoav Blum gamely tackles the quandary of fate versus free will, putting his own playful spin on one of humanity's biggest philosophical conundrums.
In Blum's re-envisioning of the universe, free will and fate coexist in a delicate dance: We all have the power to make choices, but these choices are orchestrated by an elite team known as the Coincidence Makers. Guy, Emily and Eric are three such Coincidence Makers, and it's their job to keep everything on track by adjusting circumstances and making sure everyone sticks to their steps and executes their part of the dance. As relatively low-level agents, the three are often tasked with seemingly random tasks like arranging for people to meet and fall in love, convincing someone to change careers or even getting a butterfly to flap one of its wings. However, all this changes when Guy receives the most difficult, dangerous and morally dubious assignment of his career, one that will forever change their understanding of cause and effect.
Already a bestseller in Blum's home country of Israel, this existential, mind-bending jigsaw puzzle of a novel is supremely satisfying when all the pieces fall into place. Perfect for readers who enjoy a cerebral bent to their fiction, The Coincidence Makers is a unique and unforgettable story about what happens when you try to make life go according to your own script.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Harrison, Stephenie. "THE COINCIDENCE MAKERS." BookPage, Mar. 2018, p. 22. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A529292012/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=646de207. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A529292012
The Coincidence Makers
Publishers Weekly. 265.3 (Jan. 15, 2018): p41.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The Coincidence Makers
Yoav Blum, trans, from the Hebrew by Ira Moskowitz. St. Martin's, $26.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-14611-3
Israeli author Blum makes his English-language debut with a clever mix of fantasy and mystery that supposes that some coincidences--the important ones--are arranged by the minions of an undefined almost-all-knowing agency. Past coincidence makers have been responsible for, among other things, the success of the Normandy invasion and the discovery of penicillin and X-rays. Guy and Emily are newly minted coincidence makers, promoted from the ranks of imaginary friends, living in apartments in a dreamlike locale. When they complete a coincidence, their next assignment arrives in an envelope slipped under their respective doors. One of Guy's first assignments is "to cause a particular employee at a shoe factory to lose his job," so the man, unaware that he's a brilliant composer, can discover his talent for music. Emily has a great secret that she can't share and is deeply in love with Guy. She arranges a complex coincidence to cause him to fall in love with her, but it fails. Meanwhile, Guy receives an assignment to concoct a coincidence that could profoundly change their lives. Blum rides the delicate balance between the world of the truly unbelievable and the universe you can see if you squint your eyes just right. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Coincidence Makers." Publishers Weekly, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 41. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A523888888/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d01bf184. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A523888888
Blum, Yoav: The Coincidence Makers
Kirkus Reviews. (May 1, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Blum, Yoav THE COINCIDENCE MAKERS Self (Indie Fiction) $4.99 8, 23
An unlikely thriller about the behind-the-scenes operatives who keep the gears of chance turning. Blum's (Giving the Moon, 2010) novel has the determinacy of fate as its core. But fate isn't impersonal luck or divine intervention; rather, it's an ordinary, albeit unseen, bureaucracy. Emily, Eric, and Guy have been operatives in this supernatural organization--professional coincidence-makers--for three years as the story opens. They've completed their course work in dreams, luck distribution, and how to be imaginary friends to a wide spectrum of normal people. They've studied works such as Introduction to Serendipity as they've adapted to being the world's most secret agents. Their job now is to stand "in the gray area between fate and free will," where they "create situations that create situations that create more situations that ultimately can create thoughts and decisions," and although they possess other powers (including "the ability to experience the present as something that was the future until a moment ago when it became ever so slightly past"), they're still quite human in their confused loyalties and emotions, including those they have for one another. Blum unfolds his fractured and fascinating plot in this strange, alternate hyperreality. Along the way, he introduces a large cast of characters for whom Emily, Eric, or Guy have at one point or other been imaginary friends, including a little boy named Michael, who grows up to have an unexpected impact on the world of coincidence-makers. The nature of the novel's premise allows the author plenty of leeway to smartly play around with the concept of coincidence in a fictional narrative, and he builds a tesseract of contingent possibilities that eventually spurs the story to a dramatic climax. Although the narrative can occasionally be too expository, it's rendered all the more exciting due to the fact that virtually anything can happen in a world where "you're no longer sure whether you are you, or someone they wanted you to be." A smart, unpredictable, and heartfelt adventure story about the agents of luck.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Blum, Yoav: The Coincidence Makers." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2016. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A450833024/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=ee3687a6. Accessed 28 May 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A450833024
Paul Di Filippo reviews The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum
March 28, 2018 Paul Di Filippo
The Coincidence Makers, by Yova Blum (St. Martin’s 978-1250146113, $26.99, 304pp, hardcover) March 2018
It is a shame that English-speaking readers are deprived of two out of Yoav Blum’s three books to date, since they exist only in Israeli editions in his native land. Consider this description of his latest, The Unswitchable. “[The novel] takes place in a world where everybody has a bracelet that enables them to switch bodies with anyone else. This invention changes all aspects of life—travel, relationships, religion. Dan is the only person in the world who can’t make this switch.” Don’t you want to read that? Well, you certainly would be eager if you had already acquainted yourself with The Coincidence Makers, the first novel that Blum wrote and the first to appear in the USA. It exhibits delightful flavors of Haruki Murakami and Kurt Vonnegut, and, like the work of those two writers, conceals tragedy and philosophical substance beneath its frothy surface.
The book has a notably small central cast, yet nonetheless—thanks to some ancillary plotting that follows necessarily upon its brilliant core conceit–it manages to convey a sense of the entire large world being in play.
Our main protagonist is a fellow named Guy. Next in story importance to him is a woman, Emily. Then comes their companion, Eric. The vibe amongst them is similar to that amongst the young magicians in Lev Grossman’s series, and results from the fact that the three have likewise trained together and are linked by their uncommon profession, that of “coincidence maker.” They are employed by a nebulous firm—goals, motives and morality unknown—which has the power to trigger cascades of events that result in desired outcomes. One teetering coffee cup, for instance, can lead to a lifelong love affair between two strangers. (I should pridefully mention here that I explored almost the exact same premise in my 2011 story “Sweet Spots.”) The adepts can sense the moves that they need to make intuitively, with some veterans being more deft than the newbies. Guy, for instance, is a second-rank practitioner. Later on, we will meet Pierre, a fifth-rank fellow.
Our three heroes work more or less autonomously, receiving their assignments in envelopes slid under their doors, and dealing once in a while with the General, their boss. Unambitious Guy is mostly at ease with his strange employment, although a little conflicted. Emily is more severely doubtful about their work; while Eric seems snarky and devil-may-care. These three contrasting attitudes will ramify and guide the outcome of the tale.
Blum opens each chapter with excerpts from the training materials of the coincidence makers and we gradually build up an understanding of their philosophy and methods—although the whole enterprise never hangs together as coherently as the allied conspiracy in Max Barry’s Lexicon. But it’s not necessary for Blum to deliver engineering blueprints of his imaginary organization, for this is a novel primarily of emotions and metaphysical questions—how to feel about life, and how to live a life. And at the roots of these questions is the issue of love.
Guy, you see, is in love with a specter named Cassandra, a woman he met only on another plane of existence, where they both served as Imaginary Friends. (Don’t ask now, you’ll learn all about this.) And Emily is in love, unrequitedly, with Guy. So while Blum spins various highly entertaining and ingenious subplots—one involving the world’s best assassin, Alberto Brown, who actually never kills anyone by volition yet is still one-hundred-percent deadly—his main thrust is this parallel saga of heartbreak. And I will tell you now that you will never foresee what happens in any of the book, either the love story portions or the coincidence-manufacturing portions. Blum is that sly and devilish. His tale has an inner logic that only seems arbitrary or capricious at times.
The often-epigrammatic language that Blum deploys is simple yet vivid and poetic, perhaps in the manner of Paulo Coelho, yet he generally manages to avoid the twee and faux-naive. (And in fact the genuinely tragic yet redeemable nature of his tale dispels any charges of saccharine or maudlin excess.) Here is a small sample: “He pulled the crumpled page from the trash bin, unraveled it, and made an effort to make it into a piece of paper again. He didn’t even glance at the poem he wrote earlier but turned the paper over and started to write his second poem. And the page embraced the ink, and another path opened before him in the forest.”
I should also mention that Blum himself, without a translator, has rendered his book into English. Wow! [Editor’s note: Blum corrected this to credit Ira Moskovitz for the English translation.]
Ultimately, in terms of cousinly novels, this book feels most like a Jonathan Carroll tale—and in fact Carroll endorses the novel with a blurb. But what this book really provides in its vivid cinematic way is an experience akin to watching a twisty, surreal yet naturalistic movie like Run Lola Run or the Boris Vian-derived Mood Indigo. A succession of uncanny scenes stir us to heartbreak and awe, and leave us transmogrified in ways we could never have predicted. Such a book is the ultimate coincidence maker.
Paul Di Filippo has been writing professionally for over thirty years, and has published almost that number of books. He lives in Providence, RI, with his mate of an even greater number of years, Deborah Newton.