The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen deserved its Pulitzer Prize. It's a quick read, but it covers quite a scope for what the plot actually entails. Simply, a (fictional) Jewish professor of History anticipates and then hosts Benzion Netanyahu, who is applying for a job at his college. I mention that the professor is fictional, because we later learn that much of the story is rooted in fact. During the interview process, Netanyahu has to teach a Bible class, deliver a lecture on the Middle Ages, and hobnob with the faculty. This provides opportunities to ask larger questions about Jewish identity and Israel. These subjects are explored thoroughly and with seriousness, and yet somehow, the book is often very funny in its interpersonal dynamics.
I haven't read Joshua Cohen until now, and I plan on reading more. He recalls many strong traits of writers I've loved for a while. The campus foibles of Saul Bellow's characters come through, as does the comic slapstick of Philip Roth. (Sentence by sentence, Cohen is as good as those two.) I recalled Zadie Smith's exploration of the American Black experience in On Beauty; only for Cohen, it's the spectrum of American Jewish life. The piecemeal nature of the novel reminded me of Jennifer Egan. The domestic scenes of 1950s America evoke John Cheever or Richard Yates. In this sense, The Netanyahus is a tribute to twentieth-century American fiction, and given who it's dedicated to (I won't spoil it), it's a worthy achievement.
