Messiah complex

Arnon Grunberg is known for writing incendiary satires, but his latest novel, The Jewish Messiah, pushes his bleak sense of humor into new realms. The book tells the story of Xavier Radek, a Swiss teen descendent of Nazis who is so guilt-ridden that he pretends to be Jewish and goes on to become a war-mongering prime minister of Israel. Mixed into this epic tale is a love story: Xavier falls for a rabbi’s son who hopes, among other things, to translate Mein Kampf into Yiddish.

This may sound as farcical as The Grunberg Bible, a heavily edited version of the holy book that the 36-year-old author calls “the best from the Old Testament and the New Testament, according to me, for people who don’t have time to read the complete Bible.” But Grunberg is also dead serious. “As a novelist, you have a responsibility to find out what are the weak spots of society, and hit on them,” he tells TONY at a teahouse in Murray Hill. “It’s not because you want to break a taboo,” he adds, “but because you want to reveal certain truths and not stick to convenient or polite lies.” The weak spots he attacks in The Jewish Messiah are twofold: an obsession with suffering and the Holocaust, and misguided efforts to redress past wrongs.

When we meet Xavier, he is 16 and burdened by the knowledge that his grandfather was a fervent member of the Nazi SS. With this hereditary guilt to bear, the gentile adolescent decides that he has only one option—to embark on a lifetime of “comforting” Jews in order to make up for the genocide of previous generations. After his conversion, which involves a severely botched back-alley circumcision, Xavier passes as a Jew, and his bumbling adventures and eventual rise to power vaguely call to mind the life of Hitler (both are failed painters, as well as overzealous leaders). Xavier’s flaws are obvious, but the Jewish characters don’t come off much better: In Grunberg’s worldview, everyone is caught in the cycle of trauma and misplaced empathy. “There’s something unhealthy about glorifying victimization,” the author says.

Grunberg is no stranger to The Jewish Messiah’s topics. The author, who was born in Amsterdam and now lives in New York, has a conservative sister living in the Israeli settlements; his father survived the Nazis by posing as an army deserter; and his mother survived incarceration in three concentration camps, including Auschwitz. “For me, the Holocaust never felt very far or distant—it felt as close as dinner with my parents,” Grunberg says. Being a Jew, he points out, actually helped him take on this sensitive topic without any reservations: “Because of my parents’ history, I was not worried about reactions.” Still, The Jewish Messiah doesn’t denigrate or disregard the legacy of the Holocaust; it simply admits the folly of trying to compensate for such a tragedy.

Buttressing the novel’s complex moral sensibility is Grunberg’s wild imagination. The book frequently skews toward the absurd: Woven into the story are a roving gang of thugs who quote Kierkegaard before terrorizing their victims, a Zionist cabal that sexually blackmails an Egyptian kebab-shop owner, and a bizarre subplot involving one of Xavier’s testicles. But it’s when Xavier and his newfound love, a rabbi’s son named Awromele, emigrate to Israel that the novel blooms into an unabashed satire about Middle East politics.The boys base their romance on a mutual promise “never to feel anything.” But Xavier and Awromele’s misguided, occasionally violent courtship turns into something special, suggesting that love—even if it’s dysfunctional—may save these two characters after all. “I wanted to ask: ‘When is a relationship healthy?’ ” the author points out. “In general, people do have a too-romantic idea about what love is and how it develops. There’s an aggressive and a filthy side to love, an intolerant side to it.” For Grunberg, both romance and politics are impolite, messy and vicious.

The author’s penchant for sexual power struggles and cultural clashes will bring to mind the button-pushing work of French provocateur Michel Houellebecq. But The Jewish Messiah is much more than an impolite screed; Grunberg wants to incite dialogue, not controversy. It’s a stance that has made him famous in Holland, and should, with this new book, do the same for him stateside. “For me, a novel isn’t supposed to prove a certain thing, and readers will stick to their opinion or change their opinion,” he says. “I just want them to think.”

The Jewish Messiah (Penguin Press, $27.95) is out now.