The Netanyahus

Winner of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Netanyahus

NYRB first edition cover

Author| Joshua Cohen
Cover artist| Anonymous photo c. 1955,
Design by Katy Homans
Language| English
Genre| Historical, Satire
Publisher| Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK)
NYRB (US)

Publication date

| May 5, 2021 (UK)
June 22, 2021 (US)
Publication place| United States
Media type| Print (Paperback)
Pages| 248 pp
ISBN| 9781681376073

The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family is a 2021 novel by Joshua Cohen. It was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[1]

The book centers on a fictionalized account of Harold Bloom's encounter with Benzion Netanyahu and his family, including his son, Benjamin Netanyahu, at an upstate New York college in the late 1950s, blending history, fiction, and humor.

## Synopsis

[edit]

The novel's protagonist, Ruben Blum, is a historian at the fictional Corbin College in the fictional town of Corbindale, New York in the late 1950s. He is the first and only Jewish person at Corbin.

He finds himself perpetually navigating microaggressions of his department chair, Dr. Morse. One of the humiliating incidents involves making Blum portray Santa Claus at the college's Christmas party because “it’ll free up the people who actually celebrate the holiday to enjoy themselves.”

Because he is Jewish, Dr. Morse involuntarily appoints Blum to the hiring committee for a Jewish historian by the name of Benzion Netanyahu. The hiring committee assignment takes an unexpected twist when Benzion arrives for lunch at Blum's residence, not alone but with the unannounced company of his audacious wife and feral three children (Yonatan, Benjamin, and Iddo). The Netanyahus' visit shakes up Ruben's life, leaving him to navigate a whirlwind of events beyond his control.[2][3]

## Audiobook

[edit]

Cohen recorded an audiobook version with Pushkin Industries, which features voice work from David Duchovny.[4]

## Reception and accolades

[edit]

### Critical reception

[edit]

The novel received mostly favorable reviews from critics.[5] In a positive review for The New York Times Book Review, Taffy Brodesser-Akner referred to the novel as "an infuriating, frustrating, pretentious piece of work — and also absorbing, delightful, hilarious, breathtaking and the best and most relevant novel I’ve read in what feels like forever".[6] David Isaacs praised Cohen's wit at the sentence level but questioned his success in conveying a sense of depth, describing the novel in Literary Review as "erudite, occasionally hilarious and eventually unhinged."[7]

### Awards and honors

[edit]

The Netanyahus won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[8] The Pulitzer citation for the novel described it as "A mordant, linguistically deft historical novel about the ambiguities of the Jewish-American experience, presenting ideas and disputes as volatile as its tightly-wound plot."[9] It also won the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.[10]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Washington Post wins public service Pulitzer for Capitol attack coverage". The Guardian. May 9, 2022.
2. ^ Powers, John. "'The Netanyahus' Turns The Campus Novel Into A Sly Fable About History And Identity".
3. ^ Brodesser-Akner, Taffy (2021-06-18). "The One About Bibi Netanyahu's Father and the Perils of Diaspora". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-07-24.
4. ^ "Joshua Cohen The Netanyahus Audiobook – Pushkin Industries". www.pushkin.fm. 2021-11-23. Retrieved 2022-05-10.
5. ^ "Book Marks reviews of The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen". Book Marks. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
6. ^ Brodesser-Akner, Taffy (18 June 2021). "The One About Bibi Netanyahu's Father and the Perils of Diaspora". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
7. ^ Isaacs, David (July 2021). "The Rest is History". Literary Review.
8. ^ "Pulitzer Prize: 2022 Winners List". The New York Times. 9 May 2022. Retrieved 10 May 2022.
9. ^ "2022 Pulitzer Prize Winners & Finalists". The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org). Retrieved 9 May 2022.
10. ^ "2021 National Jewish Book Award Winners". Jewish Book Council (jewishbookcouncil.org). Retrieved 17 Feb 2024.

* v
* t
* e

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Previously the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel from 1917–1947

1918–1925|

* His Family by Ernest Poole (1918)
* The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1919)
* The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (1921)
* Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (1922)
* One of Ours by Willa Cather (1923)
* The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson (1924)
* So Big by Edna Ferber (1925)

1926–1950|

* Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (1926; declined)
* Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield (1927)
* The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (1928)
* Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin (1929)
* Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge (1930)
* Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes (1931)
* The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (1932)
* The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling (1933)
* Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Pafford Miller (1934)
* Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson (1935)
* Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis (1936)
* Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1937)
* The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand (1938)
* The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1939)
* The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1940)
* In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow (1942)
* Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair (1943)
* Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin (1944)
* A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (1945)
* All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (1947)
* Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener (1948)
* Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens (1949)
* The Way West by A. B. Guthrie Jr. (1950)

1951–1975|

* The Town by Conrad Richter (1951)
* The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (1952)
* The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953)
* A Fable by William Faulkner (1955)
* Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor (1956)
* A Death in the Family by James Agee (1958)
* The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor (1959)
* Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (1960)
* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1961)
* The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor (1962)
* The Reivers by William Faulkner (1963)
* The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (1965)
* The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter (1966)
* The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (1967)
* The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron (1968)
* House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday (1969)
* The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford (1970)
* Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner (1972)
* The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (1973)
* No award given (1974)
* The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (1975)

1976–2000|

* Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow (1976)
* No award given (1977)
* Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson (1978)
* The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (1979)
* The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer (1980)
* A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (1981)
* Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike (1982)
* The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1983)
* Ironweed by William Kennedy (1984)
* Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie (1985)
* Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (1986)
* A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor (1987)
* Beloved by Toni Morrison (1988)
* Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler (1989)
* The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos (1990)
* Rabbit at Rest by John Updike (1991)
* A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (1992)
* A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler (1993)
* The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (1994)
* The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields (1995)
* Independence Day by Richard Ford (1996)
* Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser (1997)
* American Pastoral by Philip Roth (1998)
* The Hours by Michael Cunningham (1999)
* Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)

2001–present|

* The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2001)
* Empire Falls by Richard Russo (2002)
* Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2003)
* The Known World by Edward P. Jones (2004)
* Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2005)
* March by Geraldine Brooks (2006)
* The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2007)
* The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (2008)
* Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2009)
* Tinkers by Paul Harding (2010)
* A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2011)
* No award given (2012)
* The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (2013)
* The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2014)
* All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2015)
* The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2016)
* The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (2017)
* Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2018)
* The Overstory by Richard Powers (2019)
* The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (2020)
* The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (2021)
* The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen (2022)
* Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver / Trust by Hernan Diaz (2023)
* Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips (2024)

* v
* t
* e

Benjamin Netanyahu

* 9th Prime Minister of Israel (1996–1999; 2009–2021; 2022–)
* Leader of the Opposition (1993–1996; 2006–2009; 2021–2022)
* Chairman of Likud (1993–1999, 2005–)

Premiership|

* Governments
* 27 (1996–1999)
* 32 (2009–2013)
* 33 (2013–2015)
* 34 (2015–2020)
* 35 (2020–2021)
* 37 (2022–2023)
* 38 (war cabinet) (2023–)
* 2014 Gaza War
* 2018–2022 Israeli political crisis
* Abraham Accords
* Bahrain
* United Arab Emirates
* Morocco
* Sudan
* Operation Israel Guarantees
* 2023 Israeli judicial reform
* protests
* reactions
* Israel–Hamas war
* International trips

Elections|

| Likud leadership|

* 1993
* January 1999
* 2002
* 2005
* 2007
* 2012
* 2014
* 2019

|

Knesset|

* 1996
* 1999
* 2009
* 2013
* 2015
* April 2019
* September 2019
* 2020
* 2021
* 2022

Family|

* Sara Netanyahu (wife)
* Yair Netanyahu (son)
* Avner Netanyahu (son)
* Benzion Netanyahu (father)
* Yonatan Netanyahu (brother)
* Iddo Netanyahu (brother)

Related|

* Trial
* Project 315
* 2020–2021 protests against Benjamin Netanyahu
* A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
* The Netanyahus

Category
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template