Publishers Weekly
01/29/2024
Adult brothers grapple with the revelation of a shocking family secret in the meandering fiction debut from journalist Fenton (Stolen Years). In the mid-1990s, rabbi Yossi Kugel arrives in Moab, Ga., to energize the town’s small Jewish population. Twelve-year-old twins Marty and David Belkin begin studying for their bar mitzvahs with the “gnome-bearded man in funeral garb,” who hires their mother Ida Mae as a secretary. Twenty years later, David lives a mostly secular life, while Marty, who’s changed his name to Mayer, is ensconced in a Brooklyn yeshiva and married to the devout Sarah. When Ida Mae dies, leaving behind a suicide note revealing that she’d lied about being Jewish, the brothers’ lives are upended. Estranged for years, they reunite for a road trip through the Deep South that’s described by a friend of David’s as a Jewish version of Rumspringa. There’s plenty of potential here: Fenton’s wry and ingratiating narration touches on rich themes of identity formation, belonging, and exclusion. Unfortunately, that promise is undercut by thinly developed characters whose dramatic inner transformations (such as Mayer’s quick turnaround from hyper-observant Torah scholar to seeker curious about the wider world) can feel unearned. This falls short of its intriguing premise. Agent: Murray Weiss, Catalyst Literary Management. (May)
From the Publisher
* A Zibby Summer Reads Selection
"A big-hearted novel about the enduring importance of faith and family . . . overall, a lot of fun." — Associated Press
"A unique story of identity and redemption that examines no less of an issue than the essence of Judaism." — The Jerusalem Post
"A sweet-natured, fast-paced picaresque, the narrative blends the fun of an impromptu, disaster-laced road trip across the American South with a more serious inquiry into American Jewish identity." — The Forward
"Fenton has a knack for the telling and visually arresting detail. His character sketches, too, are to be relished." — Atlanta Journal Constitution
"Nothing is authentic except the quest for the authentic and it's just such a quest that speeds-way-over-the-legal-limit through the pages of Reuven Fenton's remarkably funny and compassionate novel about Goys, Jews, and that most crisis-prone of contemporary identities: the male at middle-age." — Joshua Cohen, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Netanyahus
"Bravo, Reuven Fenton, for finding humor, heart, and meaning in a lost soul’s religious ups and downs. Are Mayer and his twin Jewish? Will happiness win over self-doubt? Goyhood is funny, stirring, smart and beautifully written. Such lovable characters! Such a profoundly delicious book!” — Elinor Lipman, author of Ms. Demeanor and The Inn at Lake Devine
"A surprising and compelling novel written with the authenticity of an insider, the evocative precision of a journalist, and the heart of an audacious romantic." — Jonathan Tropper, author of NYT Bestseller This is Where I Leave You
"A novel with plenty of spritz." — Kirkus Reviews
"With its intricate character development and evocative storytelling, Goyhood is a must-read for those who seek a story with depth, humor, and heart.” — The American Israelite
"Touching, funny, and at times Shteyngartian absurd, Goyhood is road trip of a novel that grapples with what it means to be a Jew, and what it means to be human.” — Bethany Ball, author of The Pessimists
"Reuven Fenton starts with an improbable premise, throws kerosene on it, and lets us watch the whole thing take off on a loopy, exuberant flight. There’s no way this novel should work but it does: it’s funny, sweet, touching and somehow—improbably—unexpectedly—moving all at the same time. From the first page I read with my fingers across my eyes waiting for this joyful, creative novel to crash; miraculously—Baruch Hashem!—it never does." — Mischa Berlinski, author of Fieldwork and Peacekeeping
"Goyhood is an impossibly charming, beautifully written, and exquisitely felt ode to family and what it really means to belong. A triumph.” — Boris Fishman, author of A Replacement Life
"An uproarious, soulful study of the way we reshape—and deepen—our vision of self, family, and faith." — David Hopen, author of The Orchard
"Rarely do you encounter a work of literary fiction, brilliant in its execution and engaging in its indelible characters, that is also a romp, a grand entertainment. Reuven Fenton's Goyhood is all of that—its language rich and precise, its people irresistible, and its marvelous story a literal joyride. This is a novel that thrills with its hilarity and humbles with its bigness of heart. You'll miss the world it contains as soon as you leave it—and will no doubt return again soon." — Steve Stern, author of The Village Idiot
"This brisk and witty picaresque mixes laughs, tears, and enlightenment in equal measure. It's a delightful ride, so grab a yarmulke and buckle up." — American Book Award Winner Mark Sarvas, author of Memento Park and Harry, Revised
"With its refreshingly quirky indie move sensibility, Goyhood is an entertaining and deftly-paced novel of the meaning of family and faith." — Adam Langer, author of Cyclorama and The Salinger Contract
"Combining razor-sharp wit, memorable characters, and seemingly effortless prose, Goyhood is a true delight." — Lynda Cohen Loigman, author of The Matchmaker's Gift and The Two-Family House
Mischa Berlinski
"Reuven Fenton starts with an improbable premise, throws kerosene on it, and lets us watch the whole thing take off on a loopy, exuberant flight. There’s no way this novel should work but it does: it’s funny, sweet, touching and somehow—improbably—unexpectedly—moving all at the same time. From the first page I read with my fingers across my eyes waiting for this joyful, creative novel to crash; miraculously—Baruch Hashem!—it never does."
Elinor Lipman
"Bravo, Reuven Fenton, for finding humor, heart, and meaning in a lost soul’s religious ups and downs. Are Mayer and his twin Jewish? Will happiness win over self-doubt? Goyhood is funny, stirring, smart and beautifully written. Such lovable characters! Such a profoundly delicious book!
Boris Fishman
"Goyhood is an impossibly charming, beautifully written, and exquisitely felt ode to family and what it really means to belong. A triumph.
Jonathan Tropper
"A surprising and compelling novel written with the authenticity of an insider, the evocative precision of a journalist, and the heart of an audacious romantic."
American Book Award Winner Mark Sarvas
"This brisk and witty picaresque mixes laughs, tears, and enlightenment in equal measure. It's a delightful ride, so grab a yarmulke and buckle up."
Joshua Cohen
"Nothing is authentic except the quest for the authentic and it's just such a quest that speeds-way-over-the-legal-limit through the pages of Reuven Fenton's remarkably funny and compassionate novel about Goys, Jews, and that most crisis-prone of contemporary identities: the male at middle-age."
Steve Stern
"Rarely do you encounter a work of literary fiction, brilliant in its execution and engaging in its indelible characters, that is also a romp, a grand entertainment."
Bethany Ball
"Touching, funny, and at times Shteyngartian absurd, Goyhood is road trip of a novel that grapples with what it means to be a Jew, and what it means to be human.
David Hopen
"An uproarious, soulful study of the way we reshape—and deepen—our vision of self, family, and faith."
Kirkus Reviews
2024-04-05
Estranged twin brothers, one a rabbi and the other a reprobate businessman, reunite after the death of their mother for a road trip through the Deep South after learning she wasn’t Jewish—and so neither are they.
And not only are Mayer, the rabbi, and David, his drug-fueled brother, not Jewish, as she raised them in Georgia—a shocking truth revealed in her suicide note—her grandfather was “a Nazi of some kind.” Mayer, who studies the Torah the way some people devour pizza (it kills him not to be able to read it during his period of mourning, as per Jewish law), hatches a plan to convert to Judaism before returning home to his devout wife in Brooklyn. He defines goyhood as “the state of rebounding from one travesty to the next” and a lot of mishegas goes under the bridge, including a highway incident involving the one-eyed dog they rescue, a Larry David–like blowup at the Baby Light My Fireworks store in Mississippi when they object to its self-bagging policy, and the addition of David’s influencer friend Charlayne, who offends Mayer by sleeping in David’s bed. She sees their sojourn as a Jewish version of Rumspringa, but the book has more the feel of a Jewish Confederacy of Dunces (its New Orleans scenes feed that comparison) albeit without its satirical edge and dark sense of purpose. As entertaining a ride as this first novel by veteran New York reporter Fenton can be, the humor grows stale, the characters are pretty much locked in place even as Mayer is drawn into the secular life, and the soundtrack (Bob Dylan, Patsy Cline, Creedence Clearwater Revival) seems piped in from another book.
A novel with plenty of spritz but not much follow-through.
