A Horse Walks into a Bar (Vintage International)

by David Grossman

Jessica Cohen (Translator)

3 of 5 stars 3 ratings • 2 reviews • 3 shelved
Book cover for A Horse Walks into a Bar

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WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

The setting is a comedy club in a small Israeli town. An audience that has come expecting an evening of amusement instead sees a comedian falling apart on stage; an act of disintegration, a man crumbling, as a matter of choice, before their eyes. They could get up and leave, or boo and whistle and drive him from the stage, if they were not so drawn to glimpse his personal hell. Dovaleh G, a veteran stand-up comic – charming, erratic, repellent – exposes a wound he has been living with for years: a fateful and gruesome choice he had to make between the two people who were dearest to him.

A Horse Walks into a Bar is a shocking and breathtaking read. Betrayals between lovers, the treachery of friends, guilt demanding redress. Flaying alive both himself and the people watching him, Dovaleh G provokes both revulsion and empathy from an audience that doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry – and all this in the presence of a former childhood friend who is trying to understand why he’s been summoned to this performance.
  • ISBN10 1910702935
  • ISBN13 9781910702932
  • Publish Date 10 November 2016
  • Publish Status Out of Print
  • Out of Print 10 August 2021
  • Publish Country GB
  • Publisher Vintage Publishing
  • Imprint Jonathan Cape Ltd
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 208
  • Language English