The Netanyahus

An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family

By: Joshua Cohen

Narrated by: Joshua Cohen, David Duchovny, Ethan Herschenfeld

2022 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction and named one of the notable books of 2021 by The New York Times

Corbin College, not quite upstate New York, winter 1959-1960: Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian—but not an historian of the Jews—is co-opted onto a hiring committee to review the application of an exiled Israeli scholar specializing in the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu shows up for an interview, family unexpectedly in tow, Blum plays the reluctant host to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture, The Netanyahus is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics that finds Joshua Cohen at the height of his powers. The New York Times described it as “absorbing, delightful, hilarious, breathtaking and the best and most relevant novel I’ve read in what feels like forever.”

Read by the author with David Duchovny and Ethan Herschenfeld lending their vocal talents to the audiobook.

©2021 Joshua Cohen (P)2021 Pushkin Industries

Critic reviews

"Absorbing, delightful, hilarious, breathtaking and the best and most relevant novel I’ve read in what feels like forever." (Taffy Brodesser-Akner, The New York Times Book Review)

“No one writing in English today is more gifted than Joshua Cohen. Every page of The Netanyahus—an historical account of a man left out of history, a wickedly funny fable of the return of the repressed—crackles with Cohen’s high style and joyride intelligence.” (Nicole Krauss)

“The Netanyahus is constructed with a brilliant comic grace that moves from the sly to the exuberant. Some scenes are funny beyond belief. But even when moments in the book are sharp or melancholy, they keep an undertone of witty and ironic observation. The vision in this book is deeply original, making clear what a superb writer Joshua Cohen is.” (Colm Tóibín)

Make sure to read the credits (at the end)

The book was brilliant and funny. Some parts that I did not completely enjoy made a lot more sense after listening to the author's end credits-- and it allowed me to understand the historical context of the book. I particularly enjoyed the campus setting, but I work in academia so the humor / nuances might not resonate with everyone. Overall would recommend the book!

I agree with other reviewers that the sound effects--while minimal-- were unnecessary and distracting.

An engaging read

While the author took some liberties in the story, he does present a brief snapshot of the history of the family that produced a man that dominates Israeli politics today. Definitely worth the read.

Great book

This is an interesting and funny part history, part parody, part family drama. The narration was great by all three narrators, but the music got a bit annoying.

Wonderfully written but what an annoying family

My title says it all. Superbly written but the obsessing characters are hard to like, and not especially comedic.

Very intriguing!

Kind of a Pandora’s box of mid Century Jewish identity that only echos even louder into our current political landscape than even a few years back when it was published. Something of an avalanche that keeps picking things up on its way to the present.