Research Catalog
Mother for dinner
- Title
- Mother for dinner / Shalom Auslander.
- Author
- Auslander, Shalom
- Publication
- New York : Riverhead Books, 2020.
- ©2020
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JFE 21-4277 | Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 260 pages; 24 cm.
- Summary
- Seventh Seltzer has done everything he can to break from the past, but in his overbearing, narcissistic mother's last moments he is drawn back into the life he left behind. At her deathbed, she whispers in his ear the two words he always knew she would: "Eat me." This is not unusual, as the Seltzers are Cannibal-Americans, a once proud and thriving ethnic group, but for Seventh, it raises some serious questions, both practical and emotional. Of practical concern, his dead mother is six-foot-two and weighs about four hundred and fifty pounds. Even divided up between Seventh and his eleven brothers, that's a lot of red meat. Plus Second keeps kosher, Ninth is vegan, First hated her, and Sixth is dead. To make matters worse, even if he can wrangle his brothers together for a feast, the Can-Am people have assimilated, and the only living Cannibal who knows how to perform the ancient ritual is their Uncle Ishmael, whose erratic understanding of their traditions leads to conflict. Seventh struggles with his mother's deathbed request. He never loved her, but the sense of guilt and responsibility he feels--to her and to his people and to his "unique cultural heritage"--is overwhelming. His mother always taught him he was a link in a chain, thousands of people long, stretching back hundreds of years. But, as his brother First says, he's getting tired of chains. Irreverent and written with Auslander's incomparable humor, Mother for Dinner is an exploration of legacy, assimilation, the things we owe our families, and the things we owe ourselves.
- Series Statement
- "Author of Foreskin's Lament"--Dust jacket
- Subject
- Genre/Form
- Satire.
- Black humor.
- Satirical literature.
- Fiction.
- Call Number
- JFE 21-4277
- ISBN
- 9781594633720
- 159463372X
- LCCN
- 2020005232
- 40030345688
- OCLC
- 1139014196
- Author
- Auslander, Shalom, author.
- Title
- Mother for dinner / Shalom Auslander.
- Publisher
- New York : Riverhead Books, 2020.
- Copyright Date
- ©2020
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- "Author of Foreskin's Lament"--Dust jacket
- Other Form:
- Online version: Auslander, Shalom. Mother for dinner New York : Riverhead Books, 2020. 9780698188389 (DLC) 2020005233
- Other Standard Identifier
- 40030345688
- Research Call Number
- JFE 21-4277