Foreskin's LamentA Memoir

A confessional, uproariously funny account of one man's attempt to cleanse himself of his past
Shalom Auslander narrates Foreskin's Lament, his account of his struggle to recover from his miserable Orthodox Jewish upbringing, in the world-weary voice of a man at the mercy of a God he is certain is out to get him. It's the perfect tone in which to tell the darkly comic story of Auslander's lifelong fear of what he's certain is a spiteful, vengeful and needlessly punitive God. In Shalom Auslander's world, nothing is as bad as it seems – because God will ensure that it becomes much, much worse. Even the announcement of his wife's pregnancy with their first child inspires a procession of dreadful images of what God has in store:

“It's a trick. I know this God; I know how He works. The baby will be miscarried, or it will die during childbirth, or my wife will die during childbirth, or they'll both die during childbirth, or neither of them will die and I'll think I'm in the clear, and then on the drive home from the hospital, we'll collide head-on with a drunk driver and they'll both die later, my wife and child, in the emergency room just down the hall from the room where only minutes ago we stood so happy and alive and full of promise. That would be so God."

Despite such a grim introduction, the bleakness that might otherwise define this memoir is leavened by Auslander's mordant black humor. Even as he recounts growing up with an abusive, alcoholic father and doleful, guilt-inflicting mother in a stringently religious, isolated Orthodox community, he maintains his sardonic and bittersweet wit. Auslander's hilarious acts of rebellion — indulging in shoplifting, pornography, blasphemy and non-kosher McDonald's meals — paint the image of a young man searching for a road to independence away from his oppressive youth. Foreskin's Lament is a confessional, uproariously funny and universal story of how we attempt to cleanse ourselves of our past, and the indelible marks it leaves behind.