Shalom Auslander – författare

ONE OF THE TIMES' BEST LITERARY NON-FICTION BOOKS OF 2024'Hurrah for one of our most merciless humorists. Auslander's prose isn't just laudable, it's frightening' David SedarisFrom the acclaimed author of Foreskin's Lament, a memoir of the author's attempt to escape the biblical story he'd been raised on and his struggle to construct a new story for himself and his family.Shalom Auslander was raised like a veal in a dysfunctional family in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York: the son of an alcoholic father; a guilt-wielding mother; and a violent, overbearing God. Now, as he reaches middle age, Auslander begins to suspect that what plagues him is something worse, something he can't so easily escape: a story. The story. One indelibly implanted in him at an early age, a story that told him he is fallen, broken, shameful, disgusting, a story we have all been told for thousands of years, and continue to be told by the religious and secular alike, a story called "Feh."Yiddish for "Yuck."FEH follows Auslander's midlife journey to rewrite that story, a journey that involves Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a Pulitzer-winning poet, Job, Arthur Schopenhauer, GHB, Wolf Blitzer, Yuval Noah Harari, and a pastor named Steve in a now-defunct church in Los Angeles.Can he move from feh to merely meh? Can he even dream of moving beyond that? Auslander's recounting of his attempt to exorcize the story he was raised with-before he implants it onto his children and/or possibly poisons the relationship of the one woman who loves him-isn't sacred. It is more-than-occasionally profane. And like all his work, it is also relentlessly funny, subversively heartfelt, and fearlessly provocative.

Shalom Auslander was raised with a terrified respect for God. Even as he grew up, defying and eventually being cast out of his community, he could not find his way to a life in which he wasn’t locked in a daily struggle with Him. Foreskin’s Lament is a rich and fascinating portrait of a man grappling with his faith, his family and his community.‘Bracing and witty . . . Never, frankly, can there have been a more blasphemous book . . . Foreskin’s Lament somehow expresses the ideas of Richard Dawkins in the tone of David Sedaris. You can read it for the humour, you can read it as reportage into a secretive and bizarre world, you can read it as a personal tale of triumph over adversity, or you can just read it for the misery. It doesn’t really matter. But do read it’ William Sutcliffe, Independent on Sunday ‘One of the funniest books I’ve ever read, killingly so’ Hilary Spurling, Observer‘Exceptional . . . very, very funny’ Time Out‘Painfully poignant and hilariously noir’ Jewish Chronicle‘By turns hilarious and devastating . . . Few books are laugh-out-loud funny. This one is’ Naomi Alderman, Sunday Times‘America’s hottest, funniest, most controversial young Jewish memoirist . . . blackly hilarious, groundbreaking’ The Times

Possibly the funniest novel of the decade' Sunday Times, Books of the Decade 2010-2019Solomon Kugel has had enough of the past and its burdens. So, in the hope of starting afresh, he moved his family to a small rural town where nothing of import has ever happened.Sadly, Kugel’s life isn’t that simple. His family soon find themselves threatened by a local arsonist and his ailing mother won't stop reminiscing about the Nazi concentration camps she didn’t actually suffer through. And when, one night, Kugel discovers a living, breathing, thought-to-be-dead specimen of history hiding in his attic, bad very quickly becomes worse.‘The humour, at times can leave you gasping . . . comic brilliance’ Sunday Times ‘Singularly inventive and superbly shocking . . . nothing short of genius’ Scotland on Sunday‘He will make you laugh until your heart breaks’ New York Times Book Review

ONE OF THE TIMES' BEST LITERARY NON-FICTION BOOKS OF 2024'Hurrah for one of our most merciless humorists. Auslander's prose isn't just laudable, it's frightening' David SedarisFrom the acclaimed author of Foreskin's Lament, a memoir of the author's attempt to escape the biblical story he'd been raised on and his struggle to construct a new story for himself and his family.Shalom Auslander was raised like a veal in a dysfunctional family in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York: the son of an alcoholic father; a guilt-wielding mother; and a violent, overbearing God. Now, as he reaches middle age, Auslander begins to suspect that what plagues him is something worse, something he can't so easily escape: a story. The story. One indelibly implanted in him at an early age, a story that told him he is fallen, broken, shameful, disgusting, a story we have all been told for thousands of years, and continue to be told by the religious and secular alike, a story called "Feh."Yiddish for "Yuck."FEH follows Auslander's midlife journey to rewrite that story, a journey that involves Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a Pulitzer-winning poet, Job, Arthur Schopenhauer, GHB, Wolf Blitzer, Yuval Noah Harari, and a pastor named Steve in a now-defunct church in Los Angeles.Can he move from feh to merely meh? Can he even dream of moving beyond that? Auslander's recounting of his attempt to exorcize the story he was raised with-before he implants it onto his children and/or possibly poisons the relationship of the one woman who loves him-isn't sacred. It is more-than-occasionally profane. And like all his work, it is also relentlessly funny, subversively heartfelt, and fearlessly provocative.

SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021‘Outrageous satire . . . extremely funny, weirdly touching’ – Guardian‘A work of genius’ – Scotsman‘Close-to-the-knuckle farce with a big beating heart’ – Daily MailThis is the story of an unusual family. Though they are nothing like yours, you will recognize them. They are the last Cannibal-Americans. And they have a problem.When their mother dies, twelve children gather to dispose of the body in the traditional manner . . . by eating it. But can they follow the ancient rituals of consumption? Is their unique cultural heritage worth preserving if it's this gross? And what about dietary requirements - one of them is vegan. Surely it can't be this hard to do the right thing?Mother for Dinner is a dark comedy about modern life and its many difficulties.