Feh - by Shalom Auslander (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A memoir of the author's attempt to escape the biblical story he'd been raised on and his struggle to construct a new story for himself and his family"--

Book Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Foreskin's Lament, a memoir of the author's attempt to escape the biblical story he'd been raised on and his struggle to construct a new story for himself and his family

Shalom Auslander was raised like a veal in a dysfunctional family in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York: the son of an alcoholic father; a guilt-wielding mother; and a violent, overbearing God. Now, as he reaches middle age, Auslander begins to suspect that what plagues him is something worse, something he can't so easily escape: a story. The story. One indelibly implanted in him at an early age, a story that told him he is fallen, broken, shameful, disgusting, a story we have all been told for thousands of years, and continue to be told by the religious and secular alike, a story called "Feh."

Yiddish for "Yuck."

Feh follows Auslander's midlife journey to rewrite that story, a journey that involves Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a Pulitzer-winning poet, Job, Arthur Schopenhauer, GHB, Wolf Blitzer, Yuval Noah Harari and a pastor named Steve in a now-defunct church in Los Angeles.

Can he move from Feh to merely meh? Can he even dream of moving beyond that?

Auslander's recounting of his attempt to exorcize the story he was raised with--before he implants it onto his children and/or possibly poisons the relationship of the one woman who loves him--isn't sacred. It is more-than-occasionally profane. And like all his work, it is also relentlessly funny, subversively heartfelt and fearlessly provocative.

Review Quotes

Praise for FEH

"Shalom Auslander is a truth teller whose punim you want to pinch... Feh is a dark, daffy chronicle of failure and disappointment. . .Feh inverts the old tagline 'never let them see you sweat'; it is all sweat on display, salty and messy, the exposed shirt stains of someone determined to be a bronze medalist even at the insecurity Olympics." --The New York Times

"Auslander's literary career has been built on equal parts comedy, heterodoxy and self-loathing. . .His oeuvre is deliberately unsettling and funny. . .the persistent blackness of the book's black comedy makes the tiny shafts of light in the latter chapters shine that much brighter. None dare call it a redemption narrative -- that's feh-talk -- but Auslander does find a place where he doesn't have to be overwhelmed with contempt for himself or others. . .The two are intertwined. Even if we work to fix our predicament -- expunge ourselves of pointless shame, stop courting needless self-harm -- it's unlikely we'll ever stop entirely hating ourselves. But we can try, as Auslander does for much of Feh to write a story that's still honest, without feeding into the hate."--The Washington Post

"A poignant, profane, and scabrously funny exploration. . .As Auslander attempts to exorcise his demons and rewrite his origin story in a more positive light, the book takes on a 'meta' flavor in line with the narrative we humans have been telling ourselves lately about the way we use storytelling to make sense of our lives." --Associated Press

"The most mov­ing, indeed enlight­en­ing sec­tions of the book reveal how Aus­lan­der slow­ly begins to break out of the dark... Above all, Aus­lan­der cred­its his sur­vival to his clear-think­ing, green-eyed, artist wife, Orli, who nev­er fails to make him laugh. For in the end, the psy­cho­log­i­cal pain caused by feh can be eased only through laughter... At the end of Feh, Aus­lan­der begins to glimpse that light, reflect­ed in the glit­ter­ing eyes of Orli and his two sons. He dis­cov­ers an alter­na­tive com­mu­ni­ty, a tribe of feh out­casts who sur­vive by jok­ing away their shame."-- Jewish Book Council

"Auslander blends both a sense of despair and a self-deprecating whimsy in his latest ...Part personal history, part self-examination, and part social commentary, his book addresses everything from Kafka to capitalism...A page-turning memoir that shouldn't be missed... It could motivate readers to keep trudging onward, even when life seems overwhelming." --Library Journal

"Outrageously funny...With humor and heart-wrenching detail, Auslander confronts his deep-seated self-loathing and warns of how received stories can do psychological damage...The memoir is as iconoclastically funny as Auslander's fiction, but it's also reassuring."--Shelf Awareness

"A poignant...study of the religious guilt....The result is an often-brutal, sometimes-rewarding journey out of the darkness." --LitHub

About the Author

Shalom Auslander was raised in Monsey, New York. Nominated for the Koret Award for writers under thirty-five, he has published articles in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Tablet magazine, The New Yorker, and has had stories aired on NPR's This American Life. Auslander is the author of the short story collection Beware of God, the memoir Foreskin's Lament, and the novel Hope: A Tragedy. He is the creator of Showtime's Happyish. He lives in Los Angeles.