2007 book 154

Shalom Auslander's Foreskin's Lament
Man, I feel like I was waiting for this book forever! Auslander, author of Beware of God and frequent contributor to This American Life (note to my dad: you heard him do one of his pieces--I think the one about how he wasn't allowed to throw away anything with his name on it, b/c Shalom is one of God's names, or maybe it was the one about how he watched over the dead for a part-time job), has written a caustic and funny memoir about growing up religious, and how all his conflicts came to a head when his son was born and they had to decide whether or not to circumcise him. I'm not sure this story will resonate with non-Jews (or with Jews who didn't have a bunch of frum friends and went through a brief BT period), but I do think his struggles with the concept of God are perhaps universal. If nothing else, it's an entertaining look at teen rebellion in a seriously outlandish environment. A.