"A virtuoso humorist, and a brave one: beware Shalom Auslander; he will make you laugh until your heart breaks.” –
New York Times Book Review“A caustic comic tour de force.” –
NPR“Poisonously funny…. Like an unintentional bark of laughter at a funeral.” –
Entertainment Weekly“Staggeringly nervy… Other fiction writers have gotten this fresh with Anne Frank. But they don’t get much funnier… [Auslander] is an absurdist with a deep sense of gravitas… It’s a tall order for Mr. Auslander to raise an essentially comic novel to this level of moral contemplation. Yet
Hope: A Tragedy succeeds shockingly well.” –
New York Times“Shalom Auslander writes like some contemporary comedic Jeremiah, thundering warnings of disaster and retribution. What makes him so terrifyingly funny is that he isn’t joking.” — Howard Jacobson, author of
The Finkler Question and winner of the Man Booker Prize
“A wonderful, twisted, transgressive, heartbreaking, true, and hugely funny book. It will make very many people very angry. It will also make very many people very happy.” — A. L. Kennedy, author of
Day“Can the darkest events of the twentieth century and of all human history be used to show the folly of hope? And can the result be so funny that you burst out laughing again and again? If you doubt this is possible, read
Hope: A Tragedy. You won’t regret it.” — John Gray, author of
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals