Book description
Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially
isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to
make a new life apart from it. Auslander remembers his youthful attempt
to win the ‘blessing bee' (the Orthodox version of a spelling bee), his
exile to reform school in Israel after being caught shoplifting a
cassette tape of West Side Story, and his twenty-five-mile hike to watch
the New York Rangers play in Madison Square Garden without violating the
Sabbath. Throughout, Auslander struggles to understand God and His
complicated, often contradictory laws. But ultimately, he settles for a
ceasefire with God, accepting the very slim remaining hope that his
newborn son might live free of guilt, doubt, and struggle.
Auslander's combination of unrelenting humour and anger - a voice that
compares to those of David Sedaris and Dave Eggers - delivers a rich and
fascinating self-portrait of a man grappling with his faith, family, and
community.
Praise for Shalom Auslander
'There is a serious point to Auslander's fictional games. He wants us
to be careful of taking any figure of authority too seriously; God is
just the prime example . . . Its real heroes are literary: writers such
as James Joyce and Samuel Beckett who use prose to get at something more
mysterious and mystical than any religion - our love of and trust in
language, to amuse and distract us from death' Times Literary Supplement
Shalom Auslander's short story collection, Beware of God, was published
by Picador in 2005. He lives in New York.
