Shalom Auslander (born 1970) is an American novelist,memoirist, and essayist. He grew up in the strict Orthodox Jewish neighborhood ofMonsey, 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 toDavid Sedaris, while his fiction has drawn comparisons toFranz Kafka,Samuel Beckett, andGroucho Marx.[3][4] His books have been translated into over a dozen languages and are published around the world.
Auslander was born and raised inMonsey, and attended Yeshiva of Spring Valley for elementary school, and then high school at theMarsha Stern Talmudical Academy inManhattan.[5] His maternal uncles are RabbiNorman Lamm, a former chancellor of Yeshiva University, and Rabbi Maurice Lamm, the spiritual leader ofBeth Jacob in Los Angeles.[6] InForeskin's Lament, he calls them "Uncle Nathan" and "Uncle Mendel".[7]
He attended Queens College, City University of New York for 4 weeks before dropping out.
Auslander's work, often confronting his religious Jewish background, has been featured onPublic Radio International'sThis American Life and inThe New Yorker. He has also written for Esquire Magazine, Gentlemen's Quarterly, The New York Times, and many other publications around the world.
BEWARE OF GOD: STORIES
Auslander's first book was a collection of short stories,Beware of God (2006), which was a finalist for the 2003–04Koret Jewish Book Award for "Young Writer on Jewish Themes".[8] Writer A.M. Homes described the book as "the debut of the freshest voice in Jewish Literature since Phillip Roth arrived on the scene." Nicholas Lezard, writing in The Guardian, compared reading the fourteen short stories in it to "drinking fourteen shots of vodka."
A film of the story "Somebody Up There Likes You" is in development.
FORESKIN'S LAMENT
Foreskin's Lament (2007)[9] was a bestselling memoir about his early life in a strict religious and dysfunctional family, and his journey away from it. In "Foreskin's Lament", Auslander wrote of his mother, "who was the belle of the misery ball", and his father, who was angry and uncommunicative. As a child, he 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. "Even at his most rebellious," write Entertainment Weekly, "Portnoy-era Roth couldn't hold a candle to Shalom Auslander." It is currently in development for the stage in London.
HOPE: A TRAGEDY
In 2012, Auslander published his first novel,Hope: A Tragedy, a finalist for the 2013 Thurber Prize, which envisions a homeowner in upstate New York finding an elderly and foul-mouthed Anne Frank hiding in his attic.[11] It won theJewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize (2013).[12]
In 2020, the novel was named by both American and British critics as "the funniest novel of the past decade".[13][14] Leading British literary critic Andrew Holgate, retiring in 2022, namedHope: A Tragedy one of the 23 Best Books of his 23-year career.
MOTHER FOR DINNER
His novelMother 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 aBest Novel of the Year by both The Sunday Times and The Economist. A dark comedy about the cost of identity politics and the weight of the past upon the present, it was called a "riotous dissection of cultural formation" byPublishers Weekly and a "brilliant satire on tribalism" by Booklist. In theWall 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 was met with 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 publishedFEH: A Memoir, which recounts his lifelong struggle with shame and self-loathing. FEH was a finalist for the James Thurber Prize, as well as the National Jewish Book Award. The Ties of London named it one of their "Best Non-Fiction Books of 2024."
Said David Sedaris of his work: Huzzah for one of our most merciless humorists. Auslander's prose isn't just laudable, it's frightening."
In 2022, Auslander's essay on the life and work of Franz Kafka, "The Day Kafka Killed His iPhone," won the Peter Gilbert Prize by the Woolf Institute at Cambridge University, England.[17] The essay discusses the artist's paradoxical need to be both involved in the world and removed from it in order to complete their work.
Auslander wrote and created theShowtime television programHappyish, which shot a pilot withPhilip Seymour Hoffman, whom he met while adapting his novelHope: A Tragedy for the screen. After Hoffman's death on February 2, 2014, it appeared that the TV project would be discontinued, but it was recast withSteve Coogan in the lead role and premiered on 5 April 2015.[18]
In 2021, Auslander began a YouTube series titled "UNGODLY: Good Lessons from a Bad God",[19] which reexamines the Bible with God (cruel, short-tempered, and vindictive) as the antagonist of the story, "as someone we should never be like." Done in a chapter-and-verse format, the goal is to eventually complete the Old and New Testaments.
Auslander is married to the artist and writerOrli Auslander, and resides inLos Angeles, California.[20][21] They have two children.
