ISBN:
9781636140391
Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Abstract:
" A guided group tour to concentration camps in Poland and Germany allows Stahl to confront personal and historical demons with both deep despair and savage humor 34 Stahl embarks on Holocaust tourism in this meditative yet humorous account, weaving personal narrative with reflections on current and past global events.34 8212 New York Times Book Review 34 [Stahl's] razor-sharp gallows humor will have you howling one moment, breathless the next in the presence of wrenching generational pain, of humanity at its very worst, and goodness at its camouflaged best.34 8212 Brooklyn Rail 34 An audacious, emotional journey.34 8212 The Village Voice In September 2016, Jerry Stahl was feeling nervous on the eve of a two-week trip across Poland and Germany. But it was not just the stops at Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Dachau that gave him anxiety. It was the fact that he would be traveling with two dozen strangers, by bus. In a tour group. And he was not a tour-group kind of guy. The decision to visit Holocaust-world did not come easy. Stahl's lifelong depression at an all-time high, his career and personal life at an all-time low, he had the idea to go on a trip where the despair he was feeling8212 out-of- control sadness, regret, and fear, not just for himself, but for the entire United States8212 would be appropriate. And where was despair more appropriate than the land of the Six Million? Seamlessly weaving global and personal history, through the lens of Stahl's own bent perspective, Nein, Nein, Nein! stands out as a triumph of strange-o reporting, a tale that takes us from gang polkas to tour-rash to the truly disturbing snack bar at Auschwitz. Strap in for a raw, surreal, and redemptively hilarious trip. Get on the bus. 10 "
Abstract:
Biographisches: "〈p class=p1〉〈span class=s1〉 Jerry Stahl 〈/span〉〈span class=s2〉 is the author of ten books, including the best-selling memoir Permanent Midnight and the novels I, Fatty , Perv , Happy Mutant Baby Pills ,and Bad Sex on Speed . A Pushcart Prize8211" Rezension(2): "〈a href=http://www.publishersweekly.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/pw_logo.png alt=Publisher's Weekly border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from April 25, 2022 “For Jews, lucky us, there’s always reason to rant and moan The gruesome stew of history is forever simmering,” writes novelist Stahl ( I, Fatty ) in this mordantly funny account of his two-week tour group through Nazi death camps in Poland and Germany. Plagued by a “bone-deep sadness” that began after his father’s suicide in his teens, led to multiple failed marriages, and turned him into an “adulterous, self-hating, narcissistic depresso,” Stahl decided in 2016 to embrace his feelings of desolation by taking a bus tour through “sites of unspeakable suffering where bone-deep despair... was what you were supposed to experience.” Though he concedes that approach was demented, the narrative—which jaunts from encountering antisemitic wooden souvenirs called “Lucky Jews” (“Put them by the door, so money won’t go out of the house,” the storekeeper insists) to visiting snack bars at Auschwitz—casts an illuminating if disturbing light on the profit-making ventures that have turned the Holocaust into “an industry” (“which is the travesty,” he wonders, “the eating or the forgetting?”). Still, Stahl’s bewilderment at the absurd reality around him doesn’t override his skillful capacity to use the “searing gravitas” of Nazi atrocities to confront his “own reflection in the hellhouse mirror.” Fusing provocative insights with razor-edged wit, this offers a captivating take on a haunting chapter of history." Rezension(3): "〈a href=http://www.kirkusreviews.com target=blank〉〈img src=https://images.contentreserve.com/kirkus_logo.png alt=Kirkus border=0 /〉〈/a〉: Starred review from May 15, 2022 Gonzo meets the Shoah in this wildly irreverent--and brilliant--tour of Holocaust tourism. Convinced that the history of mass murder and total war is being reborn in the age of Trump and his whole destroying-democracy and damning-future-generations thing, Stahl, best known for his drug-soaked memoir, Permanent Midnight, traveled to Poland and Germany. I needed to go to Naziland, he explains. What he found, apart from the expected horrors, was a simple assault on good taste--e.g., a cafeteria in Auschwitz where tourists suck down kielbasa, dressed in the usual shorts-and-T-shirts uniform that marks them as rubes for all to see. The ghost of Hunter S. Thompson (who's invoked here) hovers in the wings, but Stahl is sui generis, with a refreshingly self-deprecatory edge (Don't be an asshole, he tells himself) and a delightfully sharp tongue: Hard not to imagine Steve 'I Financed Seinfeld' Mnuchin on Meet the Press: 'Say what you will about the Third Reich, they were big on infrastructure!' Stahl knows his Holocaust history, sometimes more than his guide (who muttered loud enough for him to hear, I hope you're not going to be my Jewish problem), but he was also prepared to be surprised. When confronted with the enormity of Nazi crimes against humanity, he writes, contemplation turns to paralysis, and you end up going nowhere, gripped by the moral equivalent of couch lock. The author doesn't hesitate to make pointed comparisons between Nazis and the members of the mob who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump's fecal lynch mob [who] bore chuckly logos like Camp Auschwitz. Stahl's takeaway is worth pondering: The Holocaust was no exception in history,instead, It is the time between holocausts that is the exception. So savor these moments. Be grateful. Even if the ax is falling. A vivid, potent, decidedly idiosyncratic addition to the literature of genocide. COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. "
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