Hope: a Tragedy: A Novel

by Shalom Auslander Narrated by Shalom Auslander

Overview

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

The critically acclaimed writer Shalom Auslander's debut novel is a hilarious and disquieting 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.

Editorial Reviews

FEBRUARY 2012 - AudioFile

Displaying a combination of sarcasm, insight, and wit in his novel, Auslander narrates with the precision of the best audiobook performers. At its simplest, HOPE is the story of how Solomon Kugel deals with his discovery that Anne Frank survived the Holocaust and is living in his attic and writing a novel. More deeply, HOPE is a literary tour de force, with allusions to many great works. Auslander does justice to his written words by deftly reading the book, adding the right inflections and tones in every scene. Remarkably, he does so without minimizing any of the book’s tragic or comic moments, such as when Kugel tries to explain to friends and family that Anne Frank is alive and encounters their reactions to this presumably unthinkable proposition. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2012 - AudioFile

Displaying a combination of sarcasm, insight, and wit in his novel, Auslander narrates with the precision of the best audiobook performers. At its simplest, HOPE is the story of how Solomon Kugel deals with his discovery that Anne Frank survived the Holocaust and is living in his attic and writing a novel. More deeply, HOPE is a literary tour de force, with allusions to many great works. Auslander does justice to his written words by deftly reading the book, adding the right inflections and tones in every scene. Remarkably, he does so without minimizing any of the book’s tragic or comic moments, such as when Kugel tries to explain to friends and family that Anne Frank is alive and encounters their reactions to this presumably unthinkable proposition. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172074301
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	01/12/2012
Edition description:	Unabridged

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