The Ruined House

A Novel

By: Ruby Namdar

Narrated by: Paul Boehmer

Winner of the Sapir Prize, Israel's highest literary award

Picking up the mantle of legendary authors such as Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, an exquisite literary talent makes his debut with a nuanced and provocative tale of materialism, tradition, faith, and the search for meaning in contemporary American life.

Andrew P. Cohen, a professor of comparative culture at New York University, is at the zenith of his life. Adored by his classes and published in prestigious literary magazines, he is about to receive a coveted promotion - the crowning achievement of an enviable career. He is on excellent terms with Linda, his ex-wife, and his two grown children admire and adore him. His girlfriend, Ann Lee, a former student half his age, offers lively companionship. A man of elevated taste, education, and culture, he is a model of urbanity and success.

But the manicured surface of his world begins to crack when he is visited by a series of strange and inexplicable visions involving an ancient religious ritual that will upend his comfortable life.

Beautiful, mesmerizing, and unsettling, The Ruined House unfolds over the course of one year, as Andrew's world unravels and he is forced to question all his beliefs. Ruby Namdar's brilliant novel embraces the themes of the American Jewish literary canon as it captures the privilege and pedantry of New York intellectual life in the opening years of the 21st century.

©2017 Reuven Namdar (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"In The Ruined House a 'small harmless modicum of vanity' turns into an apocalyptic bonfire. Shot through with humor and mystery and insight, Ruby Namdar's wonderful first novel examines how the real and the unreal merge. It's a daring study of madness, masculinity, myth-making, and the human fragility that emerges in the mix." (Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of Let the Great World Spin)

Loooooong and tedious

It is unclear what the point of this book is. It is full of long, lingering descriptions of the bodily functions and dysfunctions of the main character, professor Andrew Cohen. The descriptions are revolting, even nauseating. They are interwoven with scenes from his upper middle-class lifestyle in the bizarre milieu of New York City. I find it tedious in the extreme.

The second half of the book is an extremely drawn-out chronicle of Andrew's descent into some kind of depressive or disconnected mental state. He is at long last rescued by his adult daughter, who has become worried about his failure to answer the phone or respond to emails.

Andrew occasionally has visions of life as a priest in the temple in Jerusalem. There are hints that these visions are from a previous life, though this is left somewhat ambiguous. These scenes are often gruesome, with minutely detailed descriptions of animal sacrifices or the mass slaughter of humans.

If I had checked this out of a library on CD's, I probably would have returned it no later than the end of the first disc. However, the book was recommended by a podcast host whose opinion is usually good. Therefore I bought the book on Audble. Having bought it, I decided to listen to the whole thing just to see if it had any redeeming element. There was not. My ears were repeatedly assaulted with disgusting, loathsome scenes that lasted far too long.