Antisemite #144

Antisemite #144 by Sam Apple is a whip-smart, darkly funny debut novel about a secular Jewish guy, Aaron, with a rare medical condition: He's turning into a Hasidic Jew. At least, that's what Aaron suspects. His doctors diagnose him with rare hormonal disorder that causes men to sprout prodigious beards. But could it really be a coincidence that the condition set in right after Aaron's unsettling encounter with a Hasidic mystic? Aaron isn't sure, and the less sure he is about what's happening to him, the less sure he feels about everything else. That he can see the absurdity of his dilemma — his life increasingly feels like a werewolf novel penned by Chaim Potok— does not make it any less painful. It's Aaron's pathos, even more than the comedy, that makes Antisemite #144 so exceptional. There are echoes of Kafka and Roth and Larry David — but something entirely new is going on here, an alchemy all Apple's own. The result is a thrilling and profound literary experience. This is a book that stays with you long after you've put it down.