Book description
Solomon Kugel wishes for nothing more than to be nowhere, to be in a
place with no past, no history, no wars, no genocides. The rural town of
Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one
died there, nothing of any import has ever happened there, which is
exactly why Kugel decided to move his family there. To begin again. To
start anew.
But it isn’t quite working out that way. His ailing mother stubbornly
holds on to life, and won’t stop reminiscing about the Nazi
concentration camps she never actually suffered through. To complicate
matters further, some lunatic is burning down farmhouses just like the
one he bought, and he fears his is next. And when, one night, Kugel
discovers history - a living, breathing, thought-to-be-dead specimen of
history - hiding in his attic, bad very quickly becomes worse.
Like nothing you’ve read before, the critically acclaimed Shalom
Auslander’s debut novel is a hilarious and disquieting examination of
the burdens and abuse of history, propelled with unstoppable rhythm and
filled with existential musings and mordant wit.
‘Scabrous and determinedly iconoclastic . . . one of the funniest and
most thought-provoking novels you’ll read all year’ Sunday Times
‘A wonderful, twisted, trangressive, heartbreaking, true, and hugely
funny book. It will make very many people angry. It will also make very
many people very happy.’ A. L. Kennedy, author of Day
‘Auslander writes like some contemporary comedic Jeremiah, thundering
warnings of disaster and retribution. What makes him so terrifyingly
funny is that he isn’t joking.’ Howard Jacobson, author of The
Finkler Question
, winner of the Man Booker Prize
‘Can the darkest events of the twentieth century and of all human
history be used to show the folly of hope? And can the result be so
funny that you burst out laughing again and again? If you doubt this is
possible, read Hope: A Tragedy
. You won't regret it.’ John Gray, author of Straw Dogs: Thoughts on
Humans and Other Animals
Shalom Auslander was raised in Monsey, New York. Nominated for the
Koret Award for writers under thirty-five, he has published articles in Esquire
, the New York Times Magazine
, Tablet
, and the New Yorker, and has had stories aired on NPR’s This
American Life
. He is the author of the short-story collection Beware of God
and the memoir Foreskin’s Lament
. He lives in New York.
