Feh: A Memoir

by Shalom Auslander Narrated by Shalom Auslander

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

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

“Hurrah for one of our most merciless humorists. Auslander’s prose isn’t just laudable, it’s frightening.” —David Sedaris

“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.”—The Washington Post

“I howled with laughter.” –The Sunday Times

“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

“Auslander is one of America’s sharpest comic provocateurs.” –Jewish Chronicle

"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

Kirkus Reviews

2024-03-23
A poignant, often amusing memoir about how breaking free of the past and finding a new path is difficult but necessary.

“Feh” is a Yiddish word conveying disapproval or disgust, although a rougher translation is “yuck.” In this peculiar, intriguing memoir, Auslander, author of Foreskin’s Lament and Mother for Dinner, recounts it as an ongoing theme of his childhood and adolescence, a constant refrain from his alcoholic father and his neurotic mother that he was unworthy of affection, love, or even life. The author recounts how the teachers at his religious school reinforced the concept, implanting the idea of a God that was bitterly disappointed in all of humanity prone to random smiting and nasty tricks. Somehow, Auslander finds threads of dark comedy in this material, chronicling his efforts to overcome depression, self-loathing, and embedded guilt. He worries that he will inadvertently pass the poisonous seeds of self-destruction and vague hatred of the world to his beloved wife and children, although they turn out to be more resilient and capable than he expects. Despite stumbles into alcohol and drugs, the author gradually found success as a writer, and he punctuates the book with a range of microstories and outlines, some of which have a Kafkaesque quality—or they would, if Kafka had ever displayed a sense of fun. Auslander was drifting toward the edge of psychological disaster when, in the depth of the Covid-19 crisis, he encountered a series of everyday miracles that helped him find a way back. This isn’t a book for readers who don’t feel comfortable with the questioning of religious doctrine, but most readers will find a certain sense of inspiration in Auslander’s tragicomic struggle and his eventual, unlikely redemption.

A book full of droll humor and offbeat insights, a personal journey that speaks to deep parts of the human condition.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160246840
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	07/23/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

Videos