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The award-winning and internationally acclaimed author of the To the End of the Land now gives us a searing short novel about the life of a stand-up comic, as revealed in the course of one evening's performance. In the dance between comic and audience, with barbs flying back and forth, a deeper story begins to take shape - one that will alter the lives of many of those in attendance.In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of stand-up. In the audience is a district court justice, Avishai Lazar, whom Dov knew as a boy, along with a few others who remember Dov as an awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually, as it teeters between hilarity and hysteria, Dov's patter becomes a kind of memoir, taking us back into the terrors of his childhood: we meet his beautiful flower of a mother, a Holocaust survivor in need of constant monitoring, and his punishing father, a striver who had little understanding of his creative son. Finally, recalling his week at a military camp for youth - where Lazar witnessed what would become the central event of Dov's childhood - Dov describes the indescribable while Lazar wrestles with his own part in the comedian's story of loss and survival. Continuing his investigations into how people confront life's capricious battering, and how art may blossom from it, Grossman delivers a stunning performance in this memorable one-night engagement (jokes in questionable taste included) .



About the Author

David Grossman

From ithl. org:Leading Israeli novelist David Grossman (b. 1954, Jerusalem) studied philosophy and drama at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and later worked as an editor and broadcaster at Israel Radio. Grossman has written seven novels, a play, a number of short stories and novellas, and a number of books for children and youth. He has also published several books of non-fiction, including interviews with Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Among Grossman`s many literary awards: the Valumbrosa Prize (Italy) , the Eliette von Karajan Prize (Austria) , the Nelly Sachs Prize (1991) , the Premio Grinzane and the Premio Mondelo for The Zig-Zag Kid (Italy, 1996) , the Vittorio de Sica Prize (Italy) , the Juliet Club Prize, the Marsh Award for Children`s Literature in Translation (UK, 1998) , the Buxtehude Bulle (Germany, 2001) , the Sapir Prize for Someone to Run With (2001) , the Bialik Prize (2004) , the Koret Jewish Book Award (USA, 2006) , the Premio per la Pace e l`Azione Umanitaria 2006 (City of Rome/Italy) , Onorificenza della Stella Solidarita Italiana 2007, Premio Ischia - International Award for Journalism 2007, the Geschwister Scholl Prize (Germany) , the Emet Prize (Israel, 2007) and the Albatross Prize (Germany, 2009) . He has also been awarded the Chevalier de l`Ordre des Arts et Belles Lettres (France, 1998) and an Honorary Doctorate by Florence University (2008) . In 2007, his novels The Book of Internal Grammar and See Under: Love were named among the ten most important books since the creation of the State of Israel. His books have been translated into over 25 languages. See also



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