Feh

April 15, 2024
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.

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May 27, 2024
Novelist Auslander (Mother for Dinner) delivers a poignant if scattered study of the religious guilt he incurred while growing up in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Rockland County, N.Y. Titled after the Yiddish word for disgust, the book hinges on Auslander’s attempts to shake the conviction, drilled into him from childhood, that human beings are “totally, irredeemably feh.” That sense of divine judgment, which plagued him through marital problems with his wife, Orli, financial struggles, and professional disappointments, culminated in a recent suicide attempt that Auslander dispassionately recounts near the beginning of the memoir. After he recovered, Auslander attempted to shed his fatalistic worldview on behalf of Orli and his two sons. In episodic chapters, he recounts trying to smile through Super Bowl parties, revisits guilty memories of watching porn as an adolescent, and talks with a Christian pastor in L.A. about God’s judgment. Though he never quite manages to come out the other side of his shame, he learns to coexist with it, and realizes that a “constant refrain of self-contempt and derision becomes self-fulfilling at some point.”Auslander’s gallows humor won’t be for everyone, and the account’s lack of resolution undercuts some of its impact, but the glimmer of hope coursing through the narrative keeps it alive. The result is an often-brutal, sometimes-rewarding journey out of the darkness. Agent: Jody Hotchkiss, Hotchkiss & Assoc.

June 1, 2024

Showtime's Happyish creator and novelist/memoirist Auslander (Mother for Dinner) blends both a sense of despair and a self-deprecating whimsy in his latest memoir. It's an approach he handles tremendously well. Part personal history, part self-examination, and part social commentary, his book addresses everything from Kafka to capitalism. Replete with lessons in Yiddish terminology from his Orthodox Jewish childhood, his book covers the biblical story he learned as a child that he decided to reconstruct in his adulthood. He describes his family as dysfunctional and details his move from New York to Los Angeles. That journey includes a bunch of people, from the famous--Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Wolf Blitzer, for example--to names many readers won't recognize. Auslander's storytelling is neither direct nor straightforward. He cajoles readers to keep up as he skips from Torah tales to the present day, from people-pleasing self-hatred to inventive prose that provokes laughter. VERDICT A page-turning memoir that shouldn't be missed. Auslander's nonfiction writing style is often compared to David Sedaris, and readers will see why with this title. It could motivate readers to keep trudging onward, even when life seems overwhelming.--Jennifer Moore

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 9, 2024
Humorists often plumb personal angst for material, and in Feh, Auslander has reached a self-loathing zenith. His deep-seated belief that he and many others he encounters are "feh" (a Yiddish word expressing disgust, contempt, or scorn) animates this collection of bittersweet vignettes spanning a childhood full of incongruities in Monsey, New York, career ups and downs, and a new life in post-pandemic L.A. with his wife and kids. Throughout the book, he shares real and imagined biblical stories, while a sarcastic Greek-style chorus reinforces the tragedy of human failures. Imagining God's ambivalence about His human creation, he writes, "they're feh, from top to bottom"--a rare point of agreement between Auslander and the divine. Auslander writes about Judaism untethered by the orthodoxy of his youth. Whether he's the recipient or the teller of stories, he knows how to keep our attention. The past few years have been tumultuous for him and his family, but ultimately, we're left hopeful that Auslander will continue to share stories that help us understand our own complexities and uniqueness in the world.

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