My Holocaust: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Description

Successful father-and-son business partners Maurice and Norman Messer know a good product when they see it. That product is the Holocaustand they market it enthusiastically. Maurice is a survivor with a self-inflated personal history. Norman enjoys vicarious victimhood via the second-generation movement. And nothing will prevent them from pushing their agenda and reaping the rewards. Not guilt, pride, or ethics. Not the disappearance of Norman's daughter, Nechama, into the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz or her reemergence as Sister Consolatia of the Cross. Not even the violent takeover of America's most powerful Holocaust memorialization institution by an angry coalition of self-styled "victims" eagerly seeking Holocaust status.

Reviews

"Serious and hilarious and utterly scathing... Tova Reich is the master of fury's return" -- Washington Post Book World

"subversive, painful, brilliant, and, yes, both laugh-out-loud funny and illuminating..." -- Los Angeles Times

"a creation that surpasses mere chutzpah on its way to the profound" -- Entertainment Weekly

"...Reich's satire is...cynical...often hilarious--and likely to cause a scandal." -- Publishers Weekly

"...it surely will be the subject of much discussion." -- Library Journal

"viciously funny, head-spinning...this novel is clearly in its own class" -- Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"Reich has assembled an outlandish cast...[My Holocaust] is piercing and perceptive and cuts a wide swath." -- Booklist

"...provocative satire...powerful darts of wit and perception... clever..." -- Kirkus Reviews

"A deliciously wicked satirical novel" -- The Forward

Author Bio

Tova Reich is the author of the novels Mara (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), Master of the Return (Harcourt), and The Jewish War (Pantheon), all of which are available in paperback from Syracuse University Press. Her stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harpers, AGNI, Conjunctions, and elsewhere, and have been included in several anthologies. She has written essays and reviews for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Leader, The Wilson Quarterly, and other publications. In 1996, Harpers won the National Magazine Award for Fiction for her story, The Lost Girl.