Few people other than Mel Brooks would put the words Holocaust and comedy together, but that's exactly what HarperCollins is doing for an April book by Tova Reich. The house's flagship imprint describes Reich's My Holocaust as a "comic novel about the culture of Holocaust memory exploitation."
The book, which is about a collection of "Holocaust hangers-on" who make a living trading on the symbols and iconic nature of genocide, sounds like it has the potential to upset a number of people . But publicist Katherine Beitner said Holocaust will be criticized only by those who don't read beyond the cover. "We don't expect it to inflame members of the Jewish community," she said via e-mail. "It isn't a satire on the Holocaust in any way, but rather a satire on the abuse of Holocaust memory and the rivalrous cult of victimization."
A blurb from Cynthia Ozick calls the book "one of the most penetrating social and political novels of the early twenty-first century," and notes that it's "certain to raise a howling hullabaloo... worth raising." Still, Beitner is hoping the title will avoid controversy. PW's review (p. 44) concludes the title "is likely to cause a scandal." HC is going to press for an initial 25,000 copies.
