Nein, Nein, Nein! One Man’s Tale of Depression, Psychic Torment, and a Bus Tour of the Holocaust

“For Jews, lucky us, there’s always reason to rant and moan.... The gruesome stew of history is forever simmering,” writes novelist Stahl (I, Fatty) in this mordantly funny account of his two-week tour group through Nazi death camps in Poland and Germany. Plagued by a “bone-deep sadness” that began after his father’s suicide in his teens, led to multiple failed marriages, and turned him into an “adulterous, self-hating, narcissistic depresso,” Stahl decided in 2016 to embrace his feelings of desolation by taking a bus tour through “sites of unspeakable suffering where bone-deep despair... was what you were supposed to experience.” Though he concedes that approach was demented, the narrative—which jaunts from encountering antisemitic wooden souvenirs called “Lucky Jews” (“Put them by the door, so money won’t go out of the house,” the storekeeper insists) to visiting snack bars at Auschwitz—casts an illuminating if disturbing light on the profit-making ventures that have turned the Holocaust into “an industry” (“which is the travesty,” he wonders, “the eating or the forgetting?”). Still, Stahl’s bewilderment at the absurd reality around him doesn’t override his skillful capacity to use the “searing gravitas” of Nazi atrocities to confront his “own reflection in the hellhouse mirror.” Fusing provocative insights with razor-edged wit, this offers a captivating take on a haunting chapter of history. (July)