A HARVARD BOOK STORE New Voices in Fiction pick
A JEWISH BOOK COUNCIL Editors’ Pick
Named one of the most anticipated books of 2025 by BLOOMBERG, DEBUTIFUL, HEY ALMA, UNPACKED, GOLDA, and LGBTQ READS
"A sweet, sly, mournful, and horny coming of age, written with heart on the sleeve and politics in the pants. MAZELTOV’s passionately talented author has more than earned his title's congratulations and his readers' acclaim."
——JOSHUA COHEN, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of THE NETANYAHUS
“By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Eli Zuzovsky’s brilliantly observed novel offers a kaleidoscopic view of a young queer man’s life, his family and his times, through the lens of his bar mitzvah. MAZELTOV is an unforgettable, virtuosic debut.”
——CLAIRE MESSUD, best-selling author of THE EMPEROR’S CHILDREN
“A bold, razor-sharp debut that traces the fault lines of family, faith, and identity with dark humor and aching tenderness. Eli Zuzovsky delivers a fiercely original and smart coming-of-age story, where the weight of history meets the chaos of growing up.”
——TEHILA HAKIMI, author of HUNTING IN AMERICA
“Shimmering... An auspicious first outing.”
“Each part of the novel is accomplished and beautifully written. With its generally melancholy and memorable tone, this excellent book will make readers feel lucky to discover it. Mazel tov to them!”
——BOOKLIST
“Bold and ambitious in a way most purportedly 'political' fiction never is.”
“A deeply felt novel, wise to the misery of adolescence and adulthood."
At a banquet hall in Israel, at the onset of war, Adam Weizmann’s bar mitzvah party turns into a glorious catastrophe. On the cusp of manhood——and the verge of a nervous breakdown——Adam braces for his special day mired in family neuroses and national dysfunction.
In a chorus of voices, a fractious cast of well-wishers narrates Adam’s coming of age: his newly devout father, with a past of mystic rituals he practiced on his son; his best friend Abbie, who points the way to joyful transgression; Khalil, a Palestinian poet, who offers a glimpse of a different way to be; and Adam himself, filled with shame and desire as he confronts his sexuality and the brokenness of his world.
At once tender and lustful, a work of scathing satire and piercing insight, MAZELTOV is a wholly original vision of a young man’s quest to know his own heart.
READING GUIDE for book clubs
OTHER WRITING:
“‘It Helps Me Feel More Alive’: How Ditching My Smartphone Inspired a Fringe Play About Texting” in The Scotsman.
“'Nous aimons les spectacles exotiques': Queerness, Jewishness, and the Performance of Normality in Proust’s Recherche” in Modern Language Review.
“‘Ideas that are Not Fuelled by Emotions Die’: An Interview with Sociologist Eva Illouz” in The Oxonian Review.
“‘Sick & Disordered a Creature’: Queerness, Disease, and Shame in The Portrait of a Lady” in The Henry James Review.
“A Cock is Still Taboo: An Interview with Filmmaker Sebastian Meise” in The Oxonian Review.
“When Everything is a Commodity, We Are All on Sale Too: on Mad Men and Marxism” in Alaxon (Hebrew).
“Harvard Operated a Secret, Anti-Gay Court. It's Time for Historical Justice” in Haaretz (Hebrew).
“Coming out——or Not. Or Not: A Poem by Frank Bidart” in Haaretz (Hebrew).
”The Neoliberal Horror Picture Show” in The Harvard Political Review.
”After COVID-19, Even the U.S. Understands that Wealth Taxes are Needed” in Local Call/+972 (Hebrew).
”Queer Reflections: An Interview with Playwright Matthew Lopez” in The Harvard Advocate.
“Frank Bidart, at Eighty: An Interview with the Pulitzer-Winning Poet” in The Harvard Advocate.
“Wim Wenders’ Lectures Explore the Poetic Power of Cinema” in The Harvard Crimson.
“Alvin Ailey Celebrates 60th Anniversary with Faith and Vigor” in The Harvard Crimson.
“Agnès Varda’s Norton Lecture Tests the Boundaries of Genre” in The Harvard Crimson.
“Is It Emmanuel Macron or an IKEA Catalogue?” in The Hottest Place in Hell (Hebrew).