Changes

|title=Hope: a Tragedy

|author=Shalom Auslander

|borrow=Yes

|isbn=9781447207658

|pages=304

|publisher=Picador

|date=February 2012

|summary=A book about modern American Jewish life with such a sense of humour and darkness it'll make anyone sit up and listen.

}}

Meet Solomon Kugel, who is almost universally known by his surname. He is about to join the list of kvetching Jewish heroes of comedy fiction, and at a very esteemed position in that list. He's a man who worries that by having had a kid he's betraying the boy's soul by bringing it into a world such as this. He's forced to live with his mother, who continually expects a second Holocaust and complains about suffering from the first, although she was not born then. He's faced with the eternal dilemma of not finding gluten-free matzo bread for his observances. He's moved to a rural location, and found houses like his are on the hit-list of an arsonist, but his new home has an even more unusual secret...

[[Nemesis by Philip Roth]] could well be another modern classic about Jewish men, albeit one set in the '40s. You should also enjoy [[Songs for the Butcher's Daughter by Peter Manseau]] too.

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