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The Golem of Brooklyn

A Novel

Adam Mansbach

$35

Paperback

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English
Random House Inc
31 October 2023
From Adam Mansbach, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Go the F
*
*k to Sleep, the dazzlingly imaginative, ferociously funny story of an art teacher, a bodega clerk, and a five thousand year old clay crisis monster.

The dazzlingly imaginative, ferociously funny story of an art teacher, a bodega clerk, and a five-thousand-year-old clay crisis monster, from the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Go the F
*
*k to Sleep.

""A devastating romp through history, a bonkersroad trip through America, this novelcould not be any funnier-or anymore important.""-W. Kamau Bell

In Ashkenazi Jewish folklore, a golem is a humanoid being created out of mud or clay and animated through secret prayers. Its sole purpose is to defend the Jewish people against the immediate threat of violence. It is always a rabbi who makes a golem, and always in a time of crisis.

But Len Bronstein is no rabbi-he's a Brooklyn art teacher who steals a large quantity of clay from his school, gets extremely stoned, and manages to bring his creation to life despite knowing little about Judaism and even less about golems. Unable to communicate with his nine-foot-six, four hundred-pound, Yiddish-speaking guest, Len enlists a bodega clerk and ex-Hasid named Miri Apfelbaum to translate.

Eventually, The Golem learns English by binge-watching Curb Your Enthusiasm after ingesting a massive amount of LSD and reveals that he is a creature with an ancestral memory; he recalls every previous iteration of himself, making The Golem a repository of Jewish history and trauma. He demands to know what crisis has prompted his re-creation and whom must he destroy. When Miri shows him a video of white nationalists marching and chanting ""Jews will not replace us,"" the answer becomes clear.

The Golem of Brooklyn is an epic romp through Jewish history and the American present that wrestles with the deepest questions of our humanity-the conflicts between faith and skepticism, tribalism and interdependence, and vengeance and healing.
By:  
Imprint:   Random House Inc
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 203mm,  Width: 132mm,  Spine: 13mm
Weight:   215g
ISBN:   9780593729823
ISBN 10:   059372982X
Pages:   224
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Adam Mansbach is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Go the F**k to Sleep, as well as the novels Rage Is Back, The End of the Jews (winner of the California Book Award), and Angry Black White Boy, and the memoir-in-verse I Had a Brother Once. With Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel, he co-authored For This We Left Egypt? and the bestselling A Field Guide to the Jewish People. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Believer, and The Guardian.

Reviews for The Golem of Brooklyn: A Novel

“Adam Mansbach’s latest did not put me the F**k to Sleep. Quite the opposite, this is the update to the Golem legend I’ve been dreaming of since I survived Jewish Day School. Run don’t schlepp to the nearest bookstore and get ready to split your kishkes laughing.”—Gary Shteyngart “Jewish humor goes back a long way. And to a pantheon that includes Brooks, Bruce, Seinfeld, and David, add Mansbach at its virtual apex, with acerbic wit and an absurd premise: a supernatural avenger, a folklore savior of persecuted Jews, let loose in Trump’s America. Such satisfying calamity, this crisp book is easily the funniest novel I’ve ever read, and yet achieves an uncanny profundity. Mansbach’s voice is absolutely singular.”—Dan Charnas, New York Times bestselling author of Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, The Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm


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