Adam Mansbach

I absolutely freaking loved this book!

My general goal is for around 10-15 percent of the books I read to be "Jewish" books, meaning books about Jewish history, religion, culture, or just books written by Jews that feel Jew-ish. I heard about The Golem of Brooklyn on a podcast; the author was super amusing and the way he described the book had me interested. Boy am I glad I ordered it.

TGoB is about a dude named Lenny who steals a bunch of clay from the rich-kid school he teaches at. He gets super stoned and makes a golem in the backyard of the garden apartment he lives in in Brooklyn. The golem comes to life (extremely agitated that he doesn't have a penis), but only speaks Yiddish; a language that Lenny doesn't speak or understand. While Lenny heads down to the local bodega to recruit the only Yiddish speaker he knows, his drug dealer shows up and the golem takes more acid that I've taken in my entire life. And I've taken a lot of acid. He then, while tripping balls, learns English by watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. Mayhem ensues.

The wonky threesome end up heading to the South to do some damage at a white supremacist rally, ala Charlottesville, in a van they stole from some Hassids. Their time together is hilarious, insightful, and touches on a lot of pertinent issues. Mansbach also takes breaks from the main story every couple chapters to teach us some Jewish history and other random tidbits.

I'm gonna be an Adam Mansbach Stan starting now, so if anyone wants to buy me any of his other books, please do. His humor, wit, and writing style are all top notch, and I'm left with no doubt that he's an anti-fascist… (més)

[3.75] Kudos to Mansbach for inventively walking a tricky tightrope that employs dark humor to address issues that include antisemitism and white supremacy. In an interview with Ideastream Public Media, he noted that he uses humor to “get people to the table to talk about things that might otherwise be too thorny, too complicated, too scary or just forbidden by the culture.” (You might recall the author’s bestselling satirical book titled “Go the F*** to Sleep.”) Mansbach’s latest book traces centuries of Jewish folklore at a nearly frenetic pace. In the interview cited earlier, he noted that he aimed to use his short comic novel to “toggle back and forth between the past and present.” This toggling task is only semi-successful. Given the book’s brevity, and the complexity of some golem legends, the folklore history lessons don’t always seamlessly mesh with the offbeat plot. A cautionary note: some readers will undoubtedly be turned off by the book’s tone and crass verbiage. That being said, “The Golem of Brooklyn” is both entertaining and enlightening.… (més)