The Netanyahus

Last updated

The Netanyahus
The Netanyahus cover by Joshua Cohen.webp
NYRB first edition cover
Author Joshua Cohen
Cover artistAnonymous photo c. 1955,
Design by Katy Homans
LanguageEnglish
GenreHistorical, Satire
Publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK)
NYRB (US)
Publication date
May 5, 2021 (UK)
June 22, 2021 (US)
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Paperback)
Pages248 pp
ISBN 9781681376073

The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family is a 2021 novel by Joshua Cohen. It was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. [1]

Contents

The book centers on a fictionalized account of Harold Bloom's encounter with Benzion Netanyahu and his family, including his son, Benjamin Netanyahu, at an upstate New York college in the late 1950s, blending history, fiction, and humor.

Synopsis

The novel's protagonist, Ruben Blum, is a historian at the fictional Corbin College in the fictional town of Corbindale, New York in the late 1950s. He is the first and only Jewish person at Corbin.

He finds himself perpetually navigating microaggressions of his department chair, Dr. Morse. One of the humiliating incidents involves making Blum portray Santa Claus at the college's Christmas party because “it’ll free up the people who actually celebrate the holiday to enjoy themselves.”

Because he is Jewish, Dr. Morse involuntarily appoints Blum to the hiring committee for a Jewish historian by the name of Benzion Netanyahu. The hiring committee assignment takes an unexpected twist when Benzion arrives for lunch at Blum's residence, not alone but with the unannounced company of his audacious wife and feral three children (Yonatan, Benjamin, and Iddo). The Netanyahus' visit shakes up Ruben's life, leaving him to navigate a whirlwind of events beyond his control. [2] [3]

Audiobook

Cohen recorded an audiobook version with Pushkin Industries, which features voice work from David Duchovny. [4]

Reception and accolades

Critical reception

The novel received mostly favorable reviews from critics. [5] In a positive review for The New York Times Book Review , Taffy Brodesser-Akner referred to the novel as "an infuriating, frustrating, pretentious piece of work — and also absorbing, delightful, hilarious, breathtaking and the best and most relevant novel I’ve read in what feels like forever". [3] David Isaacs praised Cohen's wit at the sentence level but questioned his success in conveying a sense of depth, describing the novel in Literary Review as "erudite, occasionally hilarious and eventually unhinged." [6]

Awards and honors

The Netanyahus won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. [7] The Pulitzer citation for the novel described it as "A mordant, linguistically deft historical novel about the ambiguities of the Jewish-American experience, presenting ideas and disputes as volatile as its tightly-wound plot." [8] It also won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Erdrich</span> Native American author in Minnesota (born 1954)

Karen Louise Erdrich is a Native American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, a federally recognized tribe of Ojibwe people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pulitzer Prize for Fiction</span> American award for distinguished novels

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Roth</span> American novelist (1933–2018)

Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short-story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophically and formally blurring the distinction between reality and fiction, for its "sensual, ingenious style" and for its provocative explorations of American identity. He first gained attention with the 1959 short story collection Goodbye, Columbus, which won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. Ten years later, he published the bestseller Portnoy's Complaint. Nathan Zuckerman, Roth's literary alter ego, narrates several of his books. A fictionalized Philip Roth narrates some of his others, such as the alternate history The Plot Against America.

<i>The Fixer</i> (novel) 1966 novel by Bernard Malamud

The Fixer is a novel by Bernard Malamud published in 1966 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Franzen</span> American writer (born 1959)

Jonathan Earl Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel The Corrections drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel Freedom (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of Time magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel Crossroads was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jane Smiley</span> American novelist (born 1949)

Jane Smiley is an American novelist. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1992 for her novel A Thousand Acres (1991).

<i>The Ghost Writer</i> 1979 novel by Philip Roth

The Ghost Writer is a 1979 novel by the American author Philip Roth. It is the first of Roth's novels narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, one of the author's putative fictional alter egos, and constitutes the first book in his Zuckerman Bound trilogy. The novel touches on themes common to many Roth works, including identity, the responsibilities of authors to their subjects, and the condition of Jews in America. Parts of the novel are a reprise of The Diary of Anne Frank.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geraldine Brooks (writer)</span> Australian-American journalist and novelist (born 1955)

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian-American journalist and novelist whose 2005 novel March won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Brooks</span> American writer (born 1972)

Maximilian Michael Brooks is an American author. He is the son of comedian Mel Brooks and actress Anne Bancroft. Much of Brooks's writing focuses on zombie stories. He was a senior fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Rush</span> American writer

Norman Rush is an American writer most of whose introspective novels and short stories are set in Botswana in the 1980s. He won the U.S. National Book Award and the 1992 Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize for his novel Mating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joshua Cohen (writer)</span> American novelist and story writer

Joshua Aaron Cohen is an American novelist and story writer, best known for his works Witz (2010), Book of Numbers (2015), and Moving Kings (2017). Cohen won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Netanyahus (2021).

<i>The Zombie Survival Guide</i> 2003 fictional survival manual by Max Brooks

The Zombie Survival Guide is the first book written by American author Max Brooks, published in 2003. It is a fictional survival manual about zombies, containing information about zombie physiology and behavior, defense strategies and tactics, and includes case studies of possible zombie outbreaks throughout history. Despite its fictional subject matter, the book also includes practical information on disaster preparedness, generally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco Goldman</span> American novelist

Francisco Goldman is an American novelist, journalist, and Allen K. Smith Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, Trinity College. His most recent novel, Monkey Boy (2021), was a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Klam</span> American writer

Matthew Klam is an American fiction writer and magazine journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nathan Englander</span> American short story writer and novelist

Nathan Englander is an American short story writer and novelist. His debut short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, in 1999. His second collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, won the 2012 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benzion Netanyahu</span> Jewish encyclopedist, historian and medievalist (1910–2012)

Benzion Netanyahu was a Polish-born Israeli encyclopedist, historian, and medievalist. He served as a professor of history at Cornell University. A scholar of Judaic history, he was also an activist in the Revisionist Zionism movement, who lobbied in the United States to support the creation of the Jewish state. His field of expertise was the history of the Jews in Spain. He was an editor of the Hebrew Encyclopedia and assistant to Benjamin Azkin, Ze'ev Jabotinsky's personal secretary.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is an American journalist and author. She has worked freelance and as a contributor for GQ and The New York Times, where she is now a staff writer. Her profiles of celebrities have won her the New York Press Club Award and Mirror Award. Her first novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, achieved widespread success.

<i>Fleishman Is in Trouble</i> 2019 novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Fleishman Is in Trouble is a 2019 novel by American author Taffy Brodesser-Akner. The debut novel was published on June 18, 2019, by Random House. It tells the story of a Manhattan couple undergoing a bitter divorce. Brodesser-Akner also wrote the screenplay for a television miniseries based on the novel, which was released on Hulu in 2022.

<i>Fleishman Is in Trouble</i> (miniseries) 2022 American drama television miniseries

Fleishman Is in Trouble is an American drama television miniseries created by Taffy Brodesser-Akner based on her 2019 novel of the same name.

<i>Long Island Compromise</i> 2024 novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Long Island Compromise is a 2024 novel by Taffy Brodesser-Akner published by Random House.

References

  1. "Washington Post wins public service Pulitzer for Capitol attack coverage". The Guardian. May 9, 2022.
  2. Powers, John. "'The Netanyahus' Turns The Campus Novel Into A Sly Fable About History And Identity".
  3. 1 2 Brodesser-Akner, Taffy (November 2, 2021) [June 18, 2021]. "The One About Bibi Netanyahu's Father and the Perils of Diaspora" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on September 18, 2024. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  4. "Joshua Cohen The Netanyahus Audiobook – Pushkin Industries". www.pushkin.fm. 2021-11-23. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
  5. "Book Marks reviews of The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen". Book Marks. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  6. Isaacs, David (July 2021). "The Rest is History". Literary Review .
  7. "Pulitzer Prize: 2022 Winners List". The New York Times. 9 May 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
  8. "2022 Pulitzer Prize Winners & Finalists". The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org). Retrieved 9 May 2022.
  9. "2021 National Jewish Book Award Winners". Jewish Book Council (jewishbookcouncil.org). Retrieved 17 Feb 2024.