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Published Jul 2017
256 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A propulsive, incendiary novel about faith, race, class, and what it means to have a home, from Joshua Cohen, "a major American writer." (The New York Times)
One of the boldest voices of his generation, Joshua Cohen returns with Moving Kings, a powerful and provocative novel that interweaves, in profoundly intimate terms, the housing crisis in America's poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods with the world's oldest conflict, in the Middle East.
The year is 2015, and twenty-one-year-olds Yoav and Uri, veterans of the last Gaza War, have just completed their compulsory military service in the Israel Defense Forces. In keeping with national tradition, they take a year off for rest, recovery, and travel. They come to New York City and begin working for Yoav's distant cousin David King - a proud American patriot, Republican, and Jew, and the recently divorced proprietor of King's Moving Inc., a heavyweight in the tri-state area's moving and storage industries. Yoav and Uri now must struggle to become reacquainted with civilian life, but it's not easy to move beyond their traumatic pasts when their days are spent kicking down doors as eviction-movers in the ungentrified corners of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens, throwing out delinquent tenants and seizing their possessions. And what starts off as a profitable if eerily familiar job - an "Occupation" - quickly turns violent when they encounter one homeowner seeking revenge.
"Starred Review. He is funny and caustic and has a marvelous snap in his dialogue. For a writer whose last two novels total some 1,400 pages, Cohen has slimmed down here but still covers a lot of territory." - Kirkus
"The prose achieves a wild brilliance but cannot sustain it, focusing too little on what feels like the beating heart of the story. There are, however, admirable risks to be found on most every page, resulting in an ambitious and thought-provoking read." - Publishers Weekly
"In his audacious new novel, [Joshua] Cohen confronts the bewildering nature of displacement ... Lovingly personal character studies, an outrageous sense of humor, and a voice both stylish and astute." - Booklist
"Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings is a lit fuse, a force let loose, a creeping flame heading for demolition, and Cohen himself is a fierce polyknower in command of the moving parts of the human predicament." - Cynthia Ozick
"Joshua Cohen is a blacksmith who heats, hammers, and molds the language to sharpest, most precise points - not for the sake of craft, but to tell a troubled story about troubled life in the twenty-first century. This is a dazzling and poignant book." - Rachel Kushner
This information about Moving Kings was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 in Atlantic City. He has written novels (Book of Numbers), short fiction (Four New Messages), and nonfiction for The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, London Review of Books, The Forward, n+1, and others. In 2017 he was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists. He lives in New York City.
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