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Hope: A Tragedy - Shalom Auslander needs a place to hide

596 views · Published 3 February 2012 · 2:12 · Indexed 26 October 2026

Channel: Waterstones · 2012 · Entertainment

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Solomon Kugel wishes for nothing more than to be nowhere, to be in a place with no past, no history, no wars, no genocides. The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any import has ever happened, which is exactly why Kugel decided to move his family there. To begin again. To start anew. But it isn't quite working out that way. His ailing mother stubbornly holds on to life, and won't stop reminiscing about the Nazi concentration camps she never actually suffered through. To complicate matters further, some lunatic is burning down farmhouses just like the one he bought, and he fears his is next. And when, one night, Kugel discovers history a living, breathing, thought-to-be-dead specimen of history hiding in his attic, bad very quickly becomes worse.

'Auslander writes like some contemporary comedic Jeremiah, thundering warnings of disaster and retribution. What makes him so terrifyingly funny is that he isn't joking.' Howard Jacobson, author of The Finkler Question, winner of the Man Booker Prize

Buy Hope: A Tragedy at your local Waterstones bookshop (http://bit.ly/s6sdlu) or online at Waterstones.com today (http://bit.ly/wqcPN5)

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