Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (September 6, 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374280029
• ISBN-13: 978-0374280024
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds

Review An Amazon Best Book of September 2016: Jonathan Safran Foeris back (after eleven years) and may be better than ever. While Everything IsIlluminated remains one of my favorite books, Here I Am will also be added tothe list. Classic JSF with a powerfully personal touch, this novel will makeyou laugh, challenge your perceptions, and truly just impress. Here I Amfollows an already fragile family in crisis, and examines how they approachtheir fractured marriage through their religious identity as Jewish Americansand Israelis, as well as how each individual within a relationship takes onspecific roles, and why. Fans of JSF get ready to swoon, and to those whoaren’t fans yet–get ready to become one. –Penny Mann, The Amazon Book ReviewRead more Review ,“[Here I Am is] an ambitious platter of intellection andemotion. Its observations are crisp; its intimations of doom resonate; itsjokes are funny. Here I Am consistently lit up my pleasure centers . . . Thisis also Mr. Foers best and most caustic novel, filled with so much pain andregret that your heart sometimes struggles to hold it all . . . This bookoffers intensities on every page. Once put down it begs . . . to be pickedback up . . . Here I Am has more teeming life in it than several hundred well-meaning and well-reviewed books of midlist fiction put together., ,DwightGarner, The New York Times,“Dazzling . . . A profound novel about the claims ofidentity, history, family, and the burdens of a broken world., ,MaureenCorrigan, NPRs ,“Fresh Air,“Here I Am is one of those books, like Middlemarch,or for that matter Gone Girl, which lays bare the interior of a marriage withsuch intelligence and deep feeling and pitiless clarity, its impossible toread it and not re-examine your own family, and your place in it., ,LevGrossman, Time,“Brilliant, always original . . . Certain set pieces . . show amasterly sense of timing and structure and deep feeling . . . Foer strewssmall, semiprecious comic and gnomic gems all along the trail he is breaking .. Here I Am is not only the novel’s title but also, maybe, an announcement ofits ambitious and crazy-talented author’s literary residence,an announcementthat not only his location but his basic sensibility and very identity are tobe found in this work., ,Daniel Menaker, The New York Times Book Review,“Here IAm, Jonathan Safran Foers third novel, makes of his readers a battalion ofAlices, constantly shrinking and growing as they fall prey to seductivenarrative inducements. At one moment we are considering the rage that cansimmer within a marriage, the next were pondering the imminent destruction ofIsrael , in the world of the novel, not imaginary but real. The minutiae ofdomestic life and individual idiosyncrasy are so involving . . . [And] itsstructure is more reflective of its themes and concerns than is at firstapparent. The atomisation of its central family unit is deeply unsettling . .. For all this, Here I Am is endearingly funny, its one-liners and comichyperboles undercutting its inherent melancholy. Set pieces delight . . . Andit is also a novel about the inevitable and incomprehensible tragedy of thebaton passing between generations., ,Alex Clark, The Guardian,“Here I Am is awondrous novel, one of the most memorable books in years. Jonathan Safran Foeris never intimidated by big, bold topics (Israels potential demise) but alsounafraid to grapple with one of the oldest but smallest themes of Westernliterature (,“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy inits own way,). Theres no American novelist today who writes so profoundlyabout teenage angst (especially boys), about the dynamics of closely-knitfamilies, about sibling relationships, about parental fears of failure withtheir children. Nor is there anyone who writes dialogue (quick repartee, puns,intentional non sequiturs, irony and put-downs) as well as Foer . . . JonathanSafran Foer has reinvented the novel about the American Jewish experience. Hisworks are the rightful heir to the novels by Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow,deceased, and Philip Roth, who has said he has stopped writing., ,Charles R.Larson, Counterpunch”[A] startling and urgent novel . . . There are scenes sosad and so funny and so wry that I texted a friend repeatedly as I was readingit, just to say ,“goodness me!, . . . [T]he soul, if you will, of this novel isnot in its technique, but in its soulfulness. It is a novel about why we loveand how we love and how we might stop loving. It is humane in that nocharacter is a caricature. Foer has become the novelist we deserve . . . [Hehas] stretched and expanded the possibilities of the novel without losingeither intellectual integrity or emotional honesty. Here I Am is not justbold, it is brave . . . That this book is not on the Man Booker shortlist isnothing short of a disgrace: it will be remembered when all the second-ratecrime fiction and dinner party novels are long forgotten., ,Stuart Kelly, TheScotsman (UK),“Foer tests his own boundaries of spirituality and sexuality,ambition and sacrifice, originality and influence, revisiting themes andtechniques from his earlier books. With this novel, he is stepping up tocompete for his place in literary history . . . Foer rises to the rhetoricalchallenges of this plot, paying full attention to its comic, apocalyptic,psychological, emotional and historic possibilities. Its an exciting,masterful performance and his energy and power of invention never flags. ,Elaine Showalter, Prospect (UK),“A substantial, engaging novel, full ofsuspense, searching and humor, calling upon its readers, in turn, to locatethemselves with respect to the intimate portrait it draws of familiesresponding to personal and political crises., ,John Goldbach, The TorontoGlobe and Mail,“Funny scenes and characters leaven the melancholy of Here I Am,as it chronicles the way small problems in a marriage can amass until theydevastate . . . Foer, who first won readers over with youthful exuberance, nowproves he can write just as well about growing older. Here I Am is a stunnerof a family saga., ,Jenny Shank, Dallas Morning News,“Hilarious and heart-rending . . . Here I Am is the meticulous portrait of a familysdisintegration, but the ,portrait in this case is far more cinematic thanpainterly, hopping back and forth in time and from consciousness toconsciousness to create a dynamic narrative full of painfully realcharacters., ,Daniel Akst, Newsday,“Brilliant . . . The book ends on asorrowful and deeply poignant scene, but even the moments of pain and loss donot diminish the vital spirit, so authentically Jewish, that is the real gloryof Here I Am., ,Jonathan Kirsch, Jewish Journal,“[Foer] imbues Here I Am withraw emotion and genuine empathy. Jacob is a sympathetic character, his storyhums with energy., ,Trine Tsouderos, The Chicago Tribune,“There is anundeniable joy to be had in reading Foers textured, playful prose.,Constance Grady, Vox,“[Here I Am] is a towering and glorious thing . . . Andit is also, possibly, the funniest literary novel I have ever read., ,GilesCoren, The Times (UK),“Highly enjoyable and extremely funny . . . After a yearfull of unnecessarily bloated books it is a joy to read one that actuallymerits the space . . . Safran Foer is the absolute master of his fictionuniverse., ,Claire Lowdon, Times Literary Supplement,“Here I Am validates[Jonathan Safran Foer]’s status as one of our generation’s great Americannovelists . . . the story thrives on Foer’s uncanny ability to cunningly foldthe perceptual sets of multiple generations into a modern national epic., ,DanFrazier, Nylon,“[Foer’s] writing has taken on a sly maturity that feels freshand new. Here I Am is destined to be a polarizing, much-discussed novel. Loveit or hate it, it is well worth your time., ,Ian Schwartz, BookPage,“[Foer]thinks with intensity and nuance about subjects that are hard because they arebig., ,Gemma Sief, Bookforum ,“A book that is as humorous as it is tragic whichis to say, at its best, a mirror of life as we actually live it., ,GeraldineBrooks, Moment,“Foer is brilliant on the quotidian tortures of maritaldiscord., ,Alex Preston, The Observer (UK),“Brilliantly funny, stealthilyheart-crushing., ,W Magazine”[Here I Am] is at once painfully honest andgenuinely hilarious,and full of emotional surprises that will leave youreeling., ,Elle,“Dialogue pings, as animated as an Aaron Sorkin script, and isoften, very, very funny., ,Jonathan Dean, Sunday Times (UK),“Here I Am, an epicof family and identity . . . offers an unflinching, tender appraisal ofcultural displacement in an uncertain age., ,Rebecca Swirsky, The Economist,“Foer’s intensely imagined and richly rewarding novel . . . is a teeming sagaof members of the [Bloch] family . . . Throughout, his dark wit drops inzingers of dialogue, leavening his melancholy assessments of the loneliness ofhuman relationships and a world riven by ethnic hatred. He poses severalthorny moral questions, among them how to have religious faith in the modernworld, and what American Jews’ responsibilities are toward Israel. That he canprovide such a redemptive denouement, at once poignant, inspirational, andcompassionate, is the mark of a thrillingly gifted writer, ,Publishers Weekly(starred review),“Here I Am signals the accomplishment of a writer in fullcontrol of his extraordinarily creative imagination, who has becomecomfortable with pushing the conventions of fiction to reveal how ordinarypeople respond to their fracturing world . . . In Here I Am, the irresistiblenarrative gymnastics are as energetic and dazzling as ever and are in fullservice of a big, important novel from a confident, mature writer., ,JeanetteZwart, Shelf Awareness,“Foers . . . polyphonic, and boldly comedic tale of onefamilys quandaries astutely and forthrightly confronts humankinds capacityfor the ludicrous and the profound, cruelty and love., ,Booklist (starred,boxed review)”Richly conceived . . . Rigorous questions within an accessiblestory; highly recommended.” ,Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (starredreview)”[Here I Am] showcases Foer’s emotional dexterity even as it takesplace across a wider canvas than his previous books . . . This is great stuff,written with the insight of someone who has navigated the crucible of family,who understands how small slights lead to crises, the irreconcilability oflove . . . Sharply observed.” ,Kirkus Reviews Read more See all EditorialReviews