A Horse Walks Into A Bar A Novel David Grossman Jessica Cohen Translation by David Grossman, Jessica Cohen (translation) 9781101973493, 1101973498 instant download after payment.

In David Grossman’s heartbreaking, visceral novel, a stand-up comedian delivers a shockingly cruel routine about guilt & betrayal. Translated by Jessica Cohen.

In a comedy club in a small Israeli town, veteran stand-up Dovaleh G exposes a wound he has been living with for years: a fateful & gruesome choice he had to make between the two people dearest to him. Flaying alive both himself & the people watching, his act provokes a mixture of revulsion & empathy from an audience that doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. And all this in the presence of a former childhood friend who’s trying to understand why he’s been summoned to this hellish show…

"...[a] magnificently comic & sucker-punch-tragic excursion into brilliance ...  Its technical proficiency is astounding. At 194 pages, there is nothing extraneous, not one comma, not one word, not one drop of a comic’s sweat ... Grossman has taken it to a new level. He has left a trail of blood & sweat on the page that only a true master — a Lenny Bruce, a Franz Kafka — could dream of replicating."    -  Gary Shteyngart, The New York Times Book Review

David Grossman was awarded the Israel Prize for literature in 2018.  He addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his 2008 novel, To the End of the Land. Since that book’s publication, he has written a children’s book, an opera for children & several poems. His 2014 book, Falling Out of Time, deals with the grief of parents in the aftermath of their children’s death.

Jessica Cohen was born in England, raised in Israel, & now lives in the United States. She translates contemporary Israeli fiction, nonfiction, & other creative works, among them David Grossman’s critically acclaimed To the End of the Land. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Tablet, Words Without Borders, & Two Lines.