Hope: A Tragedy

Hope: A Tragedy (2012) by Shalom Auslander. Hope: A Tragedy is a dark comedy in which the protagonist, Solomon Kugel, discovers that Anne Frank (yes, the Anne Frank) is living in his attic. At first you'll think it must be some kind of a trick, that it must be someone else named Anne Frank, or a fraudulent Anne Frank, but no -- through the course of the book we learn that it is the real Anne Frank (grown considerably older) who is living in Kugel's attic. Naturally, this causes problems with Kugel's wife, Bree, his son, Jonah, and his mother, who is staying with them because she is "dying." The whole book has a comic philosophical subtext, which is explored in Kugel's interior monologue, in which he explores such questions as, "Was Hitler an optimist?" And so on. In its own weird, twisted, profane way, this is a perfect little book. Grade: A-