The Revisionist

by Helen Schulman

A black comedy about the difficulties and absurdities of confronting the past.

Dr. David Hershleder, a brilliant but tortured neurologist, has been thrown out of the house by his wife. Stumbling numbly through life, he no longer knows how to share his heart. In order to avoid the paralyzing sense of loss, he embarks on a research project involving a Holocaust denier. The son of a refugee, Hershleder has a growing fascination with Holocaust denial. With the help of two buddies from college, he finds and confronts a revisionist in Paris, and in the process confronts himself, exploding the lies around which he has constructed his own life-his own revisionist history.

With humor and incisive intelligence, Helen Schulman explores the frightening world of Holocaust denial as well as the more intimate denial that we often use to survive our own lives.

Genres: Fiction

246 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

HELEN SCHULMAN is the New York Times best-selling author of six novels, including Come with Me and This Beautiful Life. Schulman has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, Sundance, Aspen Words, and Columbia University. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh. Not as good as This Beautiful Life. This book seemed like a personal writing exercise on how to take on Cheever's The Swimmer. Some of the historical information-- like the architects and chemists who prove scientifically that the holocaust did, indeed, happen-- but the main character isn't really likeable enough to sustain his meandering forgetfulness.

[Jeff Raymond]

I don't know what I expected from this book, but what I didn't expect was a very plodding tale that could barely deliver on the semi-obsession with a Holocaust revisionist airline. Really feel like I'm striking out lately with the book choices.

[Hallie Cantor · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book, in brief, confused and distorted. It follows the mental path of David Hershleder, a successful neurologist but self-hating Jew extraordinaire, who is tortured by his mother's past (Holocaust survivor who committed suicide) and depressed over the separation from his Gentile wife. Curiosity piqued by a book on a reformed Holocaust denier, he goes in search of the author, an old college friend of his, now a self-isolated eccentric living in Los Angeles. Accompanied by his other college buddy, Kahn, they go off to France to meet the denier and subject of the book. Through his research and obsession, David comes to realize how much he himself had lived with a certain denial in his relationships, which he himself, like the revisionist, twisted around in order to suit his perception of the world.

I was initially drawn in by the vivid writing, although the descriptions of each character or setting were hardly flattering. The sexual scenes were downright vulgar. True, pre-Giuliani New York was dysfunctional, but not everyone walked around like sullen zombies. None of the characters were likeable; they seemed as stereotypically neurotic as the protagonist. Hershleder's final catharsis was disappointing for its lack of any religious awareness or redemption. His fling with an equally repulsive and messed up Jewish friend from camp might have led me to believe that he would ultimately gain insight or appreciation of his faith or heritage. Alas, no. He is still the creepy loser and lost soul to boot. Although this takes place in the mid-1990s, this book seemed dated before it was even written.

[miguel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was enjoyable at the start, but I wished there were more parts about the 'revisionist' instead of the protagonist's struggle.

[Maya Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written, and daring. Fascinating to read this after having read Helen Schulman's other (more recent) work, because this was so different--more experimental, darker somehow. As with her other work, the language is beautiful and lush, the characters memorable. I loved the slice of Manhattan this captures, the perfect time capsule of it (pre-Giuliani New York!). I also loved this for its brave exploration of subject: a Jewish man who becomes obsessed with a Holocaust denier, and the theme of denial more broadly. What speaks to people who have no ability for self-reflection? Who, like Hershleder, shuffle through life blindly? This is an impossible question to tackle, and then to do it through Holocaust denial! It shouldn't work, but it does, which proves that the best authors can pull off anything. There was much to admire here, but what I loved most was the risks the writer takes.

[Angel **Book Junkie** · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truly dark humor. The problem was I loved it. I have gone back and forth between 3 and 4 stars and I really did like it. I think that sometimes revisiting the past is something that is necessary to move forward and this book was really damn cool.