It is January 2017 and Bill has hit rock bottom. Yesterday, he was a successful science reporter at The Washington Post. Today, fired from his job, with exactly $1,219.37 in his checking account, he learns that his college roommate, a plastic surgeon known far and wide as the "Butt God of Miami Beach," has fallen to his death under salacious circumstances. With nothing to lose, Bill heads for Florida, ready to begin his own investigation-a last ditch attempt to revive his career. There's just one catch: Bill's father, Melsor.
Melsor Yakovlevich Katzenelenbogen (so-named in tribute to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and the October Revolution)-poet, literary scholar, political dissident, small-time-crook-is angling for control of the condo board at the Chateau Sedan Neuve, a crumbling high-rise populated mostly by Russian Jewish immigrants. The current board is filled with fraudsters, and Melsor will use any means necessary to win the election. And who better to help him-through legal and illegal means-than his estranged son?
Featuring a colorful cast of characters, The Chateau injects the crime novel genre with surprising idiosyncrasy, subverting it with dark comic farce in a setting that becomes a microcosm of Trump's America.
. From the author of The Yid, a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Jewish Book Award's Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction
It is January 2017 and Bill has hit rock bottom. Yesterday, he was a successful science reporter at The Washington Post. Today, fired from his job, with exactly $1,219.37 in his checking account, he learns that his college roommate, a plastic surgeon known far and wide as the "Butt God of Miami Beach," has fallen to his death under salacious circumstances. With nothing to lose, Bill heads for Florida, ready to begin his own investigation-a last ditch attempt to revive his career. There's just one catch: Bill's father, Melsor.
Melsor Yakovlevich Katzenelenbogen (so-named in tribute to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and the October Revolution)-poet, literary scholar, political dissident, small-time-crook-is angling for control of the condo board at the Chateau Sedan Neuve, a crumbling high-rise populated mostly by Russian Jewish immigrants. The current board is filled with fraudsters, and Melsor will use any means necessary to win the election. And who better to help him-through legal and illegal means-than his estranged son?
Featuring a colorful cast of characters, The Chateau injects the crime novel genre with surprising idiosyncrasy, subverting it with dark comic farce in a setting that becomes a microcosm of Trump's America.
. From the author of The Yid, a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Jewish Book Award's Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction
The acclaimed author of The Yid takes us behind the scenes of a Florida condo board election, delivering a wild spin on Miami Beach, petty crime, Jewish identity, and life in Trump's America
PAUL GOLDBERG is the author of The Yid and two books on the Soviet human rights movement, and has co-authored (with Otis Brawley) the book How We Do Harm. He is the editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, a publication focused on the business and politics of cancer.
"A master of dark, cutting humor, restless and allusive, Goldberg
turns the Château, its Lexus-driving Russians, and a nearly
90-year-old American WWII veteran who drunkenly shoots at the ocean
with his machine gun every night into a mad metaphor for Trump's
America.... Following up his acclaimed debut, The Yid (2016),
Goldberg confirms his status as one of Jewish fiction's liveliest
new voices, walking in the shoes of such deadpan provocateurs as
Mordecai Richler and Stanley Elkin."--Kirkus Reviews (starred
review) "A salty, witty, tragic comedy [about] Russian Jewish
immigrants, Florida retirees, condo living, "Donal'd Tramp,"
elderly sex, old folks who can scam the early bird dinner specials,
and more...This satire provides sharp commentary on American
society as well as an affecting story of old people with nowhere to
go and no way to get there." --Publishers Weekly
"Goldberg follows his delirious Stalin-era satire, The Yid (2016),
with an equally caustic send-up of today's brand of
authoritarianism...With allusions to Gogol...impishly comedic
Goldberg--peer to Tom Wolfe, Leslie Epstein, and Stanley
Elkin--cannily burlesques the toxicity of human folly under Trump
and Putin."
--Donna Seaman, Booklist "The Château is rich enough to read more
than once." --Stephanie Shapiro, The Buffalo News
"The sign of a great literary noir is one that cannot decide
whether it is about crime or about an existential crisis. This is
the story of Paul Goldberg's novel The Château, a detective story
that is as humorous as it is sinister.... The book treats the idea
of a detective story with total irony, toppling it over onto
itself--which is perhaps the greatest homage a writer can make
these days to a particular form."--Alexander Aciman, Tablet "Melsor
and the residents of his condo feel wholly original, fleshed-out,
and grounded in something real, in turn allowing Bill's
characterization to rise above what we might expect.... Bill and
Melsor's relationship, the wonky, beating heart of The Château,
feels so well-worn and lived-in that its volatile pushes-and-pulls
contain some genuinely touching moments.... Goldberg's book is
clearly the culmination of some serious thought about what the
alarming rise of MAGA-ness means, skillfully deployed in a glib,
almost theatrical fictional setting with an undeniably intimate
touch."
--Deborah Krieger, Popmatters.com "Paul Goldberg's The Château is a
timely, hilarious exploration of Floridian life in Donald Trump's
America and is one of the most enjoyable romps we've experienced so
far in 2018."
--Chelsea Hassler, PopSugar.com "The 20 Best New Books to Read in
February" "The Château is one of the best settings in recent
fiction, a Hotel California transplanted to swampy Florida, or
maybe the apartment building from Rosemary's Baby, full of
cryptically satanic retirees eagerly awaiting the birth of the new
presidency. Melsor's fellow inhabitants are lively and fun, even
when we find ourselves wishing that they had died prior to voting
for Donal'd Tramp the previous November.... Amid often zany comedy,
Goldberg never loses sight of the deep tragedy of old Florida Jews
supporting a man whose election has ushered in the resurgence of
Nazism as a major political force and whose policies threaten to
sink Florida into the sea..."
--David Burr Gerrard, The Brooklyn Rail "A lively tale in a
microcosm of Trump's (or Donal'd Tramp, as the Russian residents
call him) America. The story all takes place in the week leading up
to Trump's (or Tramp's) inauguration. "Make Château Great Again!"
proclaims a leaflet in the building's elevator.... It's littered
with witticisms and observations of the perhaps irony that a
building of immigrants would be so enthusiastic about Trump."
--Marissa Stern, Jewish Exponent "This is a farce for the modern
age... A hilarious romp that's well worth your time."
--Charles Trapunski, BriefTake.com "Most Anticipated Books of
February 2018" "Goldberg...deftly grafts the language and ideas of
Trump's presidential campaign, and now the first year of his
presidency, onto his second fictional work. The effect is a reading
experience that's unmistakably set in Trump's America, which could
make you want to stop reading, but you shouldn't. In the growing
category of Trump novels, which includes Salman Rushdie's The
Golden House, this entry will make you laugh..."
--Michael Czobit, The Globe and Mail "A scathing satire of Trump's
America.... Goldberg's mordant satire - invoking and channeling a
distinguished Russian literary tradition extending back to Gogol -
hits home and bites hard. Set during the week before Trump's
inauguration, Goldberg's novel unfolds within the Château Sedan
Neuve, a crumbling high-rise condominium in Hollywood, Fla...
Governed by a corrupt board - rigging bids with contractors doing
shoddy work while longtime residents get evicted - it's a metaphor
for America itself."
--Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel "Clever, irreverent
wordsmithing, a feature of Goldberg's The Yid, returns in The
Château, another madcap romp among Russians. But these Russians
live in Château Sedan Neuve, a once elegant, now decaying south
Florida high-rise condominium.... Goldberg makes this the setting
for vodka-saturated mayhem, where some of the craziest characters
turn out to be the sanest, the crooked are called fascists, and
many residents are linguistically challenged caricatures -- boorish
immigrants going figuratively to pot and literally to
potbellies...."
--Neal Gendler, American Jewish World "[An] outrageous comic
romp."
--Tom Beer, Newsday "Goldberg's absurd novel smartly evokes America
in the age of Trump."
--The National Book Review "A powerful and dark comedy that unfolds
in the two weeks leading up to the inauguration of President Donald
Trump. It is also a briskly paced crime novel festooned with pithy
observations.... Goldberg skillfully depicts the fiery,
no-holds-barred condo board battles with everything from slapstick
routines to clever repartee."
--Tommy Schnurmacher, Jewish Book Council Paper Brigade
PRAISE FOR THE YID "A dazzling tragicomic debut."--Jane Ciabattari,
NPR.ORG "[A] singular debut novel... An ambitious historical
fantasy... The Yid is a screwball farce about atrocity....Paul
Goldberg's animating intelligence gives all this madness a stunning
coherence that, these days, we all too rarely get from either art
or life."--Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
"The Yid is darkly playful and generous with quick insights into
the vast weirdness of its landscape."--Glen David Gold, The
Washington Post
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