Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Get this deal Try for £0.00
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Hope: A Tragedy cover art

Hope: A Tragedy

By: Shalom Auslander
Narrated by: Shalom Auslander
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Ash Wednesday cover art
A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty cover art
Second Chance cover art
They May Not Mean To, But They Do cover art
The Rabbit Factor cover art
The Ickabog cover art
Great Expectations cover art
A Prayer for Owen Meany cover art
Red Rising cover art
The True Meaning of Smekday cover art
Candide [CSA Word] cover art
51 Sleepless Nights: Collection of Horror Stories cover art
Fresh Air cover art
Through the Window cover art
The Collection, Volume 1 cover art
The Jewel in the Crown cover art

Summary

The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: No one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son 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 when, one night, Kugel discovers history - a living, breathing, thought-to-be-dead specimen of history - hiding upstairs in his attic, bad quickly becomes worse.

The critically acclaimed writer Shalom Auslander's debut novel is a hilarious and disquieting examination of the burdens and abuse of history, propelled with unstoppable rhythm and filled with existential musings and mordant wit. It is a comic and compelling story of the hopeless longing to be free of those pasts that haunt our every present.
©2012 Shalom Auslander (P)2012 Penguin
Literary Fiction Jewish Satire
Show More Show Less

Critic reviews

“Staggeringly nervy… Other fiction writers have gotten this fresh with Anne Frank. But they don’t get much funnier… [Auslander] is an absurdist with a deep sense of gravitas… It’s a tall order for Mr. Auslander to raise an essentially comic novel to this level of moral contemplation. Yet Hope: A Tragedy succeeds shockingly well.” ( New York Times)
“Poisonously funny…. Like an unintentional bark of laughter at a funeral.” ( Entertainment Weekly)
“A caustic comic tour de force.” (NPR)

What listeners say about Hope: A Tragedy

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    3
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    8
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Audible.co.uk reviews

Amazon reviews
Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
Profile Image for Anonymous User

More enjoyable if you go in cold

Outlandishly bizarre premises. Hateful and pitiful characters. Deliciously comical and radically cynical. Provoking metaphors on refrain. For those with a subpar mother, listening to it before bed might lead to matricidal dreams.

Auslander may be the perfect narrator of his novels.

Would recommend to anyone who enjoys David Sedaris and doesn’t get easily offended. Emphasis on the latter.

Would not recommend listening while you cook/eat. Some passages are so vivid and kill my appetite like a boot over a bug. Hats off to Auslander though.

Report this

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!