Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)

Shalom Auslander. (2012). Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Shalom Auslander. 2012. Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group.

Shalom Auslander, Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2012.

Shalom Auslander. Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel. Penguin Publishing Group, 2012.

OverDrive Product Record

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

formats

1. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781101561287
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
2. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B005GSZZ88
   • name: Kindle Book
   • id: ebook-kindle
3. • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781101561287
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • id: ebook-overdrive

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781594488382

mediaType

eBook

primaryCreator

• role: Author
• name: Shalom Auslander

title

Hope: A Tragedy

dateAdded

2016-08-18T21:32:00Z

contentDetails

1. • href: https://link.overdrive.com/?websiteID=141&titleID=630881
   • type: text/html
   • account:
     • name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
     • id: 1151

sortTitle

Hope A Tragedy A Novel

crossRefId

630881

subtitle

A Novel

id

4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469

starRating

2.7

OverDrive MetaData

isPublicDomain

False

formats

1. • fileName: HopeATragedy_9781101561287_630881
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 248885
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781101561287
   • rights:
     1. • type: Copying
        • value: 0
     2. • type: Printing
        • value: 0
     3. • type: Lending
        • value: 0
     4. • type: ReadAloud
        • value: 0
     5. • type: ExpirationRights
        • value: 0
   • name: Adobe EPUB eBook
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-epub-adobe
   • onSaleDate: 1/12/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
        • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/HopeTragedy9781101561287.epub
     2. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
2. • fileName: HopeATragedy_630881
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ASIN
        • value: B005GSZZ88
   • name: Kindle Book
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-kindle
   • onSaleDate: 1/12/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
        • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/HopeTragedy9781101561287.epub
     2. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
3. • fileName: HopeATragedy_9781101561287_630881
   • partCount: 0
   • fileSize: 0
   • identifiers:
     1. • type: ISBN
        • value: 9781101561287
   • name: OverDrive Read
   • isReadAlong: False
   • id: ebook-overdrive
   • onSaleDate: 1/12/2012
   • samples:
     1. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-epub-adobe
        • url: https://excerpts.cdn.overdrive.com/FormatType-410/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/HopeTragedy9781101561287.epub
     2. • source: From the book
        • formatType: ebook-overdrive
        • url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469&.epub-sample.overdrive.com

keywords

1. • value: judaism
2. • value: family
3. • value: relationships
4. • value: Friendship
5. • value: literary fiction
6. • value: Historical
7. • value: romance
8. • value: Humor
9. • value: sisters
10. • value: Anne Frank
11. • value: parenting
12. • value: contemporary fiction
13. • value: Paranormal
14. • value: Fiction
15. • value: crime
16. • value: novels
17. • value: classic
18. • value: love
19. • value: Death
20. • value: Collection
21. • value: satire
22. • value: Comedy
23. • value: Short Stories
24. • value: mystery
25. • value: Drama
26. • value: murder
27. • value: Modern
28. • value: England
29. • value: Adventure
30. • value: WWII
31. • value: Holocaust
32. • value: Magic
33. • value: New York
34. • value: roman
35. • value: fairy tales
36. • value: literature
37. • value: fiction books
38. • value: fantasy
39. • value: religious
40. • value: funny books
41. • value: humor books
42. • value: humorous books
43. • value: satire fiction
44. • value: religious books
45. • value: funny gifts
46. • value: realistic fiction books
47. • value: books fiction
48. • value: mother son gifts

creators

1. • role: Author
   • fileAs: Auslander, Shalom
   • name: Shalom Auslander

imprint

Riverhead Books

publishDate

2012-01-12T00:00:00Z

isOwnedByCollections

True

title

Hope: A Tragedy

fullDescription

A New York Times Notable Book 2012
The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: no one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there.

To begin again. To start anew. But it isn’t quite working out that way for Kugel…

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 Kugel bought, and when, one night, he discovers history—a living, breathing, thought-to-be-dead specimen of history—hiding upstairs in his attic, bad quickly becomes worse.

Hope: A Tragedy is a hilarious and haunting examination of the burdens and abuse of history, propelled with unstoppable rhythm and filled with existential musings and mordant wit. It is a comic and compelling story of the hopeless longing to be free of those pasts that haunt our every present.

reviews

1. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from October 31, 2011
     Cultural anthropologists trying to figure out if there really is a recognizably Jewish voice and sense of humor, and if so, how it mixes and matches its key elements of self-deprecation, mordant compliance, hypochondria, and a total lack of surprise when disaster occurs, should consider Auslander’s debut novel. The author’s memoir, Foreskin’s Lament, was about growing up in and leaving the Orthodox Jewish community; this novel’s hero, Solomon Kugel, isn’t observant, but he’s still locked into a relationship with a God he “could never believe in... but he could never not believe in, either.” And with a mother who insists she’s a Holocaust survivor, major money problems, a farmhouse that’s not only on the hit list of a local arsonist but also features an unwanted occupant in the attic, he’s fully immersed in what Philip Roth (an obvious influence, down to a shared obsession with Anne Frank) once called “the incredible drama of being a Jew.” Things start out hilarious and if the book wanes a bit as life keeps getting worse for Kugel, God’s plaything, that’s okay. As funny as it is, the novel is also a philosophical treatise, a response—ambivalent, irreverent, and almost certainly offensive to some—to the question of whether art and life are possible after the Holocaust, an examination of how to “never forget” without, as Kugel’s infamous attic occupant puts it, “never shutting up about it.”

2. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     Starred review from December 1, 2011
     A family man suffers from money woes, a judgmental spouse and a hectoring mother. But things don't get really funny until he discovers Anne Frank living in his attic. Auslander's debut novel is a scalding, uproarious satire that rejects the idea that the Holocaust can't be mined for comedy--he just knows that a book has to be very good to pull it off. The story's hero is Solomon Kugel, an eco-friendly–goods salesman who's moved his wife and toddler son to a rural Northeast town for some peace and quiet. No such luck: An arsonist is at large, the tenant they've taken on to help make ends meet won't stop complaining and Kugel's mother, supposedly at death's door with a terminal illness, isn't going anywhere. Indeed, she eagerly pursues her beloved hobby of imagining herself a Holocaust victim, slipping images of the death camps alongside family photos in scrapbooks. Investigating a tapping sound he hears in the ducts, Solomon discovers an elderly, sickly, foul-mouthed Anne Frank living in his attic, working on a sequel to her famous diary. The metaphor is punishingly obvious: The Holocaust is an unshakable, guilt-inducing fixture in the life of any self-aware Jew, and living with its legacy can be a burden. What's remarkable is how far Auslander (Beware of God, 2005, etc.) is willing to push the metaphor, and how much pathos he gets from the comedy. Lampshades, grim historical photographs and Alan Dershowitz are all the stuff of laugh-out-loud lines, and Solomon's therapist delivers statements that turn received wisdom on its head--utopia is dystopia, hope is tragic. Auslander's pithy, fast-moving prose emphasizes the comedy, but no attentive reader will misunderstand that he's respectful of the Holocaust's tragedy, only struggling to figure out how to live in its shadow. Brutal, irreverent and very funny. An honest-to-goodness heir to Portnoy's Complaint.

     (COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

3. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     November 1, 2011
     

     Auslander, author of the edgy, well-received memoir Foreskin's Lament, returns with a first novel about a man who's moved his family to uneventful Stockton, NY. But there's an arsonist about, and in the attic he finds an ancient woman, arm tattooed, who claims to be Anne Frank. Acerbically smart and in-your-face daring; some readers will bridle. Ripe for attention.

     Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

4. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     October 15, 2011
     Given his audaciously funny memoir, Foreskin's Lament (2007), it isn't surprising that Auslander's first novel is defiantly hilarious, but its riotous and downright sacrilegious satire wildly exceeds expectations. Solomon Kugel has moved his family out of the city and into an old upstate farmhouse. All should be idyllic, but Kugel's mother has delusions of being a Holocaust survivor, and the house is plagued with a terrible smell. Once Kugel, a champion worrier, whose psychoanalyst tells him that hope is a malady, discovers that a veritable Holocaust saint is living in his attic, life becomes antic and impossibly complicated. As his hapless hero tries to do right, Auslander orchestrates a mission of desecration. Spouting painfully nervy puns (Auschwitz happens) and cracking bad jokes about gluten intolerance and how he wouldn't even have made it to head shaving in the camps, Kugel mocks the Misery Olympics of Jewish laments and demolishes the entire concept of remembrance. Along with its lacerating irreverence and tonic comedy of angst, Auslander's devilishly cunning, sure-to-be controversial novel poses profound questions about meaning, justice, truth, and responsibility.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

5. • premium: True
   • source:
   • content:

     December 1, 2011
     

     Solomon Kugel is obsessed with death and what his last words will be. Having moved to the country for some peace and quiet, he discovers that he has a supposedly long-dead Holocaust victim living in his farmhouse attic. What's worse, he won't ask her to leave. He fears that as a Jew he will be ostracized for making a famous concentration camp victim homeless--never mind that he's discovered that the bad smell in the house is from her using the heating vents as her toilet. In this hilarious farce, we inhabit the musings of Kugel as he deals with what initially seems like a minor inconvenience in his home life. Soon, however, events spin out of control as he is injured, loses his job, and alienates his wife. VERDICT With underlying ghoulish humor--it's risky to engage lightheartedly with the Holocaust--Auslander provides a brisk narrative marked by a continuing parade of sharp, ironic asides as Kugel's life falls apart piece by piece. A darkly ambitious undertaking in absurdity that essentially mimics the problems of real life; recommended for all libraries. [See Prepub Alert, 9/30/11.]--Henry Bankhead, Los Gatos P.L., CA

     Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

popularity

36

links

• self:
  • href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/4bed94f3-fad9-4955-b305-c295c6ca0469/metadata
  • type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
• shareInLibby:
  • href: https://link.overdrive.com/share?q=YaAJAMShdiw
  • type: text/HTML

id

4bed94f3-fad9-4955-b305-c295c6ca0469

starRating

2.7

images

• cover:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/1523-1/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img100.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• thumbnail:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/1523-1/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img200.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover150Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img150.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg
• cover300Wide:
  • href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/1523-1/4BE/D94/F3/{4BED94F3-FAD9-4955-B305-C295C6CA0469}Img400.jpg
  • type: image/jpeg

isPublicPerformanceAllowed

False

languages

1. • code: en
   • name: English

subjects

1. • value: Fiction
2. • value: Literature
3. • value: Humor (Fiction)

publishDateText

01/12/2012

otherFormatIdentifiers

1. • type: ISBN
   • value: 9781594488382

mediaType

eBook

shortDescription

A New York Times Notable Book 2012
The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: no one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there.

To begin again. To start anew. But it isn’t quite working out that way for Kugel…

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 Kugel bought, and when, one night, he discovers history—a living, breathing, thought-to-be-dead specimen of history—hiding upstairs in his attic, bad quickly becomes worse.

Hope: A Tragedy is a hilarious and haunting examination of the burdens and abuse of history, propelled...

sortTitle

Hope A Tragedy A Novel

crossRefId

630881

subtitle

A Novel

publisher

Penguin Publishing Group

bisacCodes

1. • code: FIC016000
   • description: Fiction / Humorous / General
2. • code: FIC019000
   • description: Fiction / Literary
3. • code: FIC026000
   • description: FICTION / Religious