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In a glorious debut, a boy confronts queer lust, shame, the threat of war and the plague of family on the day he becomes a man.
At a banquet hall, at the onset of war, Adam Weizmann's bar mitzvah party turns into a glorious catastrophe. On the cusp of manhood―and the verge of a nervous breakdown―Adam braces for his special day, mired in family neuroses and national dysfunction.
In a chorus of voices, a fractious cast of well-wishers narrates Adam's coming-of-age: his newly devout father and the mystic rituals he practiced on his young son; his best friend, Abbie, who points the way to joyful transgression; Khalil, the Palestinian poet, who offers a glimpse of a different way to be; and Adam himself, filled with shame and desire as he faces the brokenness of his world.
At once tender and lustful, a work of scathing satire and piercing insight, Mazeltov is a wholly original vision of a young man's quest to know his own heart.
"Shimmering...[A]n auspicious first outing." ―Publishers Weekly
"Each part of the novel is accomplished and beautifully written. With its generally melancholy and memorable tone, this excellent book will make readers feel lucky to discover it. Mazeltov to them!" —Booklist
"A sweet, sly, mournful, and horny coming of age, written with heart-on-the-sleeve and politics in the pants. Mazeltov's passionately talented author has more than earned his title's congratulations and his readers' acclaim." ―Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Netanyahus
"By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Eli Zuzovsky's brilliantly observed novel offers a kaleidoscopic view of a young queer man's life, his family and his times, through the lens of his bar mitzvah. Mazeltov is an unforgettable, virtuosic debut." ―Claire Messud, author of This Strange Eventful History
This information about Mazeltov was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Eli Zuzovsky holds degrees from Harvard and Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. In 2022, he was selected for the Forbes Israel 30 Under 30 list and the London Library Emerging Writers Programme, and he is the winner of the 2025 Einstein Fellowship. His films and plays have been shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival, Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the American Repertory Theater, and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, among others. He currently lives in London. Mazeltov is his first novel.
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