A Horse Walks Into a Bar

Praise

WINNER OF THE 2017 MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 
A New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book

“Astounding. . . . [A] magnificently comic and sucker-punch-tragic excursion into brilliance.” —Gary Shteyngart, The New York Times Book Review

“Unsettling and mesmerizing. . . . As beautiful as it is unusual, and it’s nearly impossible to put down.” —NPR
 
“Bewitching. . . . Brilliant, blistering.” —The Washington Post

“[Grossman] has transcended genre; or rather, he has descended deep into the vaults beneath. . . . This isn’t just a book about Israel: it’s about people and societies horribly malfunctioning.” —The Guardian
 
“As cunning and compelling as the stand-up guy at its center. In this funnyman’s sad, grotesque performance, Grossman reaffirms his power to entertain and unnerve.” —The Boston Globe

“Arresting. . . . Grossman seems to be channeling Philip Roth, circa Portnoy’s Complaint, with a colloquial voice that badgers, bullies, berates and beseeches.” —San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A short, shocking masterpiece . . . in which absurdity and humour are used to probe the darkest corners of the human condition.” —The Sunday Times (London)
 
“[A] pitch-black comedy. . . . It takes an author of Mr Grossman’s stature to channel not a failed stand-up but a shockingly effective one, and to give him salty, scabrous gags that—in Jessica Cohen’s savoury translation—raise a guilty laugh.” —The Economist
 
“Grossman has once more proved himself as one of Israel’s finest literary alchemists. . . . An unsettling, cathartic, confessional stream-of-consciousness soliloquy.” —Haaretz
 
“[A] raw and fiercely emotional book.” —The Spectator
 
“In little more than 200 pages, Grossman brings us to the nerve center of his psyche.” —The Jerusalem Post
 
“Few writers hold a more unflinching mirror up to Israeli society than Grossman . . . But [his work] is also suffused with compassion, acutely attuned to the complexity of individual lives and the solutions people find to the challenge of that complexity.” —Financial Times
 
“A devastating work. . . . A lamentation and a plea for compassion and empathy. . . . A Horse Walks into a Bar is unlike anything Grossman has yet done.” —The Irish Times