![]() ![]() “For an instant, when he looks up, the spotlight creates an optical illusion,” Avishai muses as he watches Dov discover what has lain hidden for decades, “and a fifty-seven-year-old boy is reflected out of a fourteen-year-old man.” Grossman wrestles with questions of faith and friendship, fate and family, with empathy, wisdom, and acerbic wit. As Dov immerses himself in his act, the audience-many of whom eventually walk out in bewilderment or anger at Dov’s deeply personal (and often decidedly grim) revelations-come to understand that, amid the self-deprecating humor and good-natured banter, the comedian is, for the first time, recounting the formative event of his life. ![]() ![]() ![]() The story of Dov’s life-his worship of a mentally ill mother who survived the Holocaust, his contentious relationship with his father, his awkward adolescence, and a brief stay at a military camp in Gadna-unspools over one evening in a basement club in the small city of Netanya, Israel, related through the observations of Avishai Lazar, a boyhood friend of Dov’s and, later, a respected judge. Jessica Cohen 1 Knopf 2017 208 Pages 25.95 ISBN: 978-0451493972 Review by Ranen Omer-Sherman for Jewish Book. Grossman ( To the End of the Land) masterfully balances the neuroses and hard-earned insight of veteran stand-up comedian Dov Greenstein with a defining memory that’s 40 years in the shaping. A Horse Walks into a Bar David Grossman trans. ![]()
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