Depending on your point of view, Shalom Auslander either is wickedly funny or simply wicked. In this startlingly original memoir, he chronicles his lifelong theological wrestling match with a vengeful, Biblical God. It's an uproariously funny, shockingly blunt rollercoaster ride that likely will appall and delight readers in equal measure.The title of Auslander's memoir unquestionably is intended to evoke comparisons to Philip Roth's 1969 novel, Portnoy's Complaint. Roth's early works, like Portnoy and Goodbye, Columbus, expressing his savage critique of the secular materialism and sexual repression of the prosperous generation of American Jews after World War II, provoked outrage in the Jewish community. Auslander takes aim at a much smaller segment of that community, but he's no less acerbic in his portrait than Roth at his most biting.
Auslander grew up in the 1970s in the Catskills town of Monsey, N.Y., home to an insular community of highly observant Jews. To describe his family as dysfunctional only reveals the pitiful inadequacy of that term. His alcoholic father is physically and verbally abusive, and his submissive mother is obsessed with illness and death. "My family and I are like oil and water," he writes, "if oil could make water depressed and angry and want to kill itself." The family is shadowed by the death of Auslander's younger brother Jeffy at the age of two.
Foreskin's Lament is peppered with rollicking set pieces. Some of the memorable include his description of an agonizing boyhood afternoon spent struggling to observe the strictures of the Sabbath or his account of the 25-mile hike he and his wife took from Teaneck, N.J., to Madison Square Garden to watch a Rangers' playoff game while technically adhering to the prohibition against riding on that holy day.
What gives Auslander's memoir its distinctive quality is that it strives to be more than a comedic rant against a certain strain of fundamentalist religion. It arises out of a rich and deep tradition within Judaism of humans arguing on a deeply personal level with God. "I believe in God," Auslander writes, "It's been a real problem for me." He describes "an endless cycle not of the celebrated 'faith followed by doubt,' but of appeasement followed by revolt; placation followed by indifference."
Unfortunately, just when you think Auslander is going to reach for something more than a superficial potshot at the Almighty, he succumbs to the temptation to train his fire on an easy target or settle for a cheap laugh. Speaking of the decision he and his wife made to have a doctor circumcise their son two days after his birth instead of observing the circumcision rite prescribed by Jewish law, he writes, "It was the foreskin that broke the camel's back." His frequent use of profanity, although common among comics of his generation, is nonetheless disappointing for a writer of his evident gifts.
At age 36, Auslander could be either his generation's Philip Roth--or its Jackie Mason. Without doubt, his is a distinctive, challenging and highly entertaining voice. Still, it's fair to ask the question: Is he wise, or simply a wise guy?--Harvey Freedenberg