Shalom Auslander (born 1970) is an American novelist, memoirist, and essayist. He grew up in a strict Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Monsey, New York, where he describes himself as having been "raised like a veal".[1][2] His writing style is notable for its existentialist themes, biting satire and black humor. His nonfiction often draws comparisons to David Sedaris, while his fiction has drawn comparisons to Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Groucho Marx.[3][4] His books have been translated into over a dozen languages and are published around the world.
Auslander was born and raised in Monsey, and attended Yeshiva of Spring Valley for elementary school, and then high school at the Marsha Stern Talmudical Academy in Manhattan.[5] His maternal uncles are Rabbi Norman Lamm, a former chancellor of Yeshiva University, and Rabbi Maurice Lamm, the spiritual leader of Beth Jacob in Los Angeles.[6] In Foreskin's Lament, he calls them "Uncle Nathan" and "Uncle Mendel".[7]
Auslander's first book was a collection of short stories, Beware of God (2006), which was a finalist for the 2003–04 Koret Jewish Book Award for "Young Writer on Jewish Themes".[8] Writer A. M. Homes called the book "the debut of the freshest voice in Jewish Literature since Philip Roth arrived on the scene." In The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard compared reading its 14 short stories to "drinking fourteen shots of vodka." Christopher Hitchens wrote, "Any enemy of the gods and the godly is a friend of mine—even this freak."
A film adaptation of the story "Somebody Up There Likes You" is in development.
Foreskin's Lament
Foreskin's Lament (2007)[9] is a memoir about Auslander's early life in a strict religious and dysfunctional family and his journey away from it. In it, he writes of his mother, "who was the belle of the misery ball", and his father, who was angry and uncommunicative. As a child, Auslander went through the house and destroyed all the pornography he found. As an adult, he rebelled against his religious upbringing.[10]Foreskin's Lament was named one of the 2007 New York Times Best Books of the Year. Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Even at his most rebellious, Portnoy-era Roth couldn't hold a candle to Shalom Auslander." A stage adaptation is in development in London.
In 2020, both American and British critics named Hope: A Tragedy "the funniest novel of the past decade".[13][14] Upon retiring in 2022, British literary critic Andrew Holgate named it one of the 23 Best Books of his 23-year career.
Mother for Dinner
Aulander's next novel, Mother for Dinner, tells the story of a family of assimilated Cannibal-Americans tasked with consuming (as is their tradition) their deceased mother's body. It was named a Best Novel of the Year by both The Sunday Times and The Economist. Publishers Weekly called it a "riotous dissection of cultural formation" and Booklist called it a "brilliant satire on tribalism". In the Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks wrote: "Everyone has different ideas about what's funny, and for me, the gold standard is dark Jewish humor—the more masochistic and taboo, the better. This sort of joking is scarce today—cultural homogenization and the current moral panic over giving offense have turned it into something like samizdat—but at least we have Shalom Auslander."[14] In the UK, the book received unanimous praise, with critic Stuart Kelly calling it a "work of genius".[15] Its omission from the Booker Longlist prompted an op-ed in The Times to ask, "But why no Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander, which is funny, in bad taste and a satire of identity politics?"[16]
FEH: A Memoir
In 2024, Auslander published FEH: A Memoir, which recounts his lifelong struggle with shame and self-loathing. FEH was a finalist for the Thurber Prize and the National Jewish Book Award. The Times named it one of their "Best Non-Fiction Books of 2024."
David Sedaris wrote: "Huzzah for one of our most merciless humorists. Auslander's prose isn't just laudable, it's frightening."
In 2022, the Woolf Institute at Cambridge University, England awarded Auslander's essay on the life and work of Franz Kafka, "The Day Kafka Killed His iPhone", the Peter Gilbert Prize.[17] The essay discusses Kafka's paradoxical need to be both involved in the world and removed from it to complete his work.
TV/film
Shalom Auslander with Phillip Seymour Hoffman on set of Happyish
Auslander wrote and created the Showtime television program Happyish, which shot a pilot with Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom he met while adapting his novel Hope: A Tragedy for the screen. After Hoffman died in 2014, it appeared that the TV project would be discontinued, but it was recast with Steve Coogan in the lead role and premiered on 5 April 2015.[18]
In 2021, Auslander began a YouTube series, "UNGODLY: Good Lessons from a Bad God",[19] which reexamines the Bible with God (cruel, short-tempered, and vindictive) as the antagonist, "someone we should never be like." The series is in a chapter-and-verse format and Auslander intends to complete the Old and New Testaments.
↑ Reese, Jennifer (2007-10-05), "Shtick Figure". Entertainment Weekly (957):73
↑ Bob Minzesheimer (2007-11-01), "Round-up: Non-fiction, in brief." USA Today.
↑ Brawarsky, Sandee. "An Orthodox 'cast-off' holds God accountable", The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, October 19, 2007. Accessed February 14, 2008. "By the time he was in high school, the Manhattan Talmudic Academy, he was shoplifting the kinds of expensive clothing his classmates wore, smoking dope, and skipping classes to go to museums, bookstores, and porn shops."
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