The Chateau, Paul Goldberg
The Chateau, Paul Goldberg
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Château

Author: Paul Goldberg

Narrator: Neil Hellegers

Unabridged: 10 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 05/22/2018


Synopsis

It is January 2017 and Bill has hit rock bottom. Yesterday, he was William M. Katzenelenbogen, successful science reporter at the Washington Post. But things have taken a turn. Fired from his job, aimless, with exactly $1,219.37 in his checking account, he learns that his college roommate, a plastic surgeon known far and wide as the "Butt God of Miami Beach," has fallen to his death under salacious circumstances. With nothing to lose, Bill boards a flight for Florida's Gold Coast, ready to begin his own investigation—a last ditch attempt to revive his career.

There's just one catch: Bill's father, Melsor.

Melsor Yakovlevich Katzenelenbogen—poet, literary scholar, political dissident, small-time-crook—is angling for control of the condo board at the Château Sedan Neuve, a crumbling high-rise in Hollywood, Florida, populated mostly by Russian Jewish immigrants. The current board is filled with fraudsters levying "special assessments" on residents, and Melsor will use any means necessary to win the board election. And who better to help him than his estranged son?

About Paul Goldberg

Paul Goldberg's debut novel The Yid was published in 2016 to widespread acclaim and named a finalist for both the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the National Jewish Book Award's Goldberg Prize for Debut Fiction. As a reporter, Goldberg has written two books about the Soviet human rights movement, and has coauthored (with Otis Brawley) the book How We Do Harm, an expose of the U.S. healthcare system. He is the editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, a publication focused on the business and politics of cancer. He lives in Washington, D.C.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bandit

My first thought upon finishing this book was how do I review it? It’s such a difficult book to review. Goldberg sticks to the write what you know maxim judging by his fictional award winning debut Yid, which actually sounds way more interesting than this one, born in Moscow, moving to the US at 14,......more

Goodreads review by Lisa

Ripped-out-of-the-headlines novels often fail. Not this one. THE CHATEAU appears to have been written in a kind of happy heat amid Trump's presidential run and Russian scandals. Like a slaphappy, tipsy anthropologist, Goldberg penetrates the community of Russian emigrees in Florida who supported the......more

Goodreads review by Annie

First published on my blog: Nonstop Reader. What a strange book! Author Paul Goldberg's second novel follows up his successful debut The Yid with a blackly comedic exploration of the surreality of life in post-election-Trump America. William (nee Ilya) Katzenelenbogen has lost his job as an investiga......more

Set during the inauguration of Donald Trump, this novel tackles political and social tensions from the perspective of immigrants on either side. Overall, a fun read: satirical and subversive with heavy doses of despondence and brutal realism. I really enjoyed the tidbits of Russian literature and po......more