Feh

A Memoir By My Favorite Writer

I’m a bit of a fan of Shalom Auslander whose new memoir, Feh, went on sale the other day. Full disclosure: We’ve been shagging for thirty years, give or take.

Feh is a Yiddish word used to express disgust. The closest English translation of the word is yuck or gross, but being Middle Eastern, I rarely heard these growing up.

Of course, when my husband initially told me the title, I got the gist of the word, especially after several readings of the manuscript which illustrated how it was used against him growing up.

Everyone gets the idea of feh.

But then I saw the Hebrew cover of the memoir just a couple of weeks ago with feh translated as fuyah. The word was a gut-punch I suddenly grasped more viscerally.

Seeing it printed in my native language conjured up snapshots of a thousand faces from the past reacting to a million things I had touched, said, and done wrong.

If these faces look familiar, you’ll probably love Shalom’s memoir.

Yes, I’m recommending it in case there are enough book people left to make the residuals matter but also because it’s dark and hilarious and it resonates.

Still, don’t take it from me, take it from feh allies who seem to agree, or from feh aficionado,  Marc Maron.

And to prove there are still enough readers in Los Angeles to fill Book Soup, I’ve uploaded the recording of the (lengthy for 2024 attention spans) in person reading a few days ago.

My fantastic camera work will no doubt win me many awards.