Auslander, Shalom – The Bell Bookshop

Feh

Emma — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

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 Sedaris

From 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.

Feh

Emma — Tue, 23 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0000

‘Hurrah for one of our most merciless humorists. Auslander’s prose isn’t just laudable, it’s frightening’ David Sedaris

From 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.”

Mother for Dinner

Emma — Thu, 16 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

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 Mail

This 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.

Mother For Dinner

Emma — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

‘Extremely funny, weirdly touching and acute about families’ – Guardian
‘Daring, provocative and controversial . . . a work of genius’ – Scotsman
‘Terrifically funny . . . Close-to-the-knuckle farce with a big beating heart’ – Daily Mail

Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the traditions of the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother’s last moments, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: ‘Eat me’.

This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions. Of practical concern, she’s six-foot-two and weighs over thirty stone – even divided up between Seventh and his eleven brothers, that’s a lot of red meat. Plus, Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan and Sixth is dead. To make matters worse, even if he can wrangle his brothers together for a feast, the Can-Am people have assimilated, and the only living Cannibal who knows how to perform the ancient ritual is their Uncle Ishmael, a far from reliable guide.

Beyond the practical, Seventh struggles with the sense of guilt and responsibility he feels – to his mother, to his people and to his unique cultural heritage. His mother always taught him he was a link in a chain, stretching back centuries. But he’s getting tired of chains.

Shalom Auslander’s Mother for Dinner is an outrageously tasty comedy about identity and inheritance, the things we owe our families and the things we owe ourselves.

The new book by the author of Hope: A Tragedy – ‘the funniest novel of the decade’ Sunday Times