Hope: A Tragedy

Shalom Auslander

2013 Winner

Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize

27 September 2012
9781447207665
352 pages

Synopsis

Possibly the funniest novel of the decade' Sunday Times, Books of the Decade 2010-2019

Solomon 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

‘I think it’s a brilliant book, I think it’s as good as Portnoy’s Complaint’ David Baddiel, Open Book, BBC Radio 4
‘One of the best books I read last year. It’s hilarious . . . I think we should all read it.’ Naomi Alderman, Open Book, BBC Radio 4
One of the funniest, wrongest books of the century