The Extra by Abraham B. Yehhoshua

Noga, a 42-year-old professional harpist and the headstrong, elliptical heroine of A. B. Yehoshua’s new novel, “The Extra,” doesn’t want children. Nine years earlier that refusal led to her divorce, and since then she has left Israel for a job with a Dutch orchestra and drifted into an amiable affair with a colleague. But after her father dies she returns to Jerusalem and faces the questions that loved ones and strangers just won’t stop asking. Is her childlessness a quirk, a stigma or an affliction — or does it perhaps offer her an opportunity to reset the course of her life?