What do you think?
Rate this book
My Lover, the Rabbi
Not yet published
Expected 17 Mar 26A psychosexual relationship between a rabbi and the man devoted to him goes off the rails in this explosive novel.
The rabbi is, to the untrained eye, far from desirable. Lofty and unkempt, aging and constantly losing members of his flock, he is nonetheless the singular object of obsession for the self-abjecting narrator of My Lover, the Rabbi. From the start of their psychosexual affair, the two men torment, pleasure, and manipulate each other with ardor. When they’re apart, the narrator manically contemplates every element of the rabbi’s — his alluring adopted son, his false erudition, his patrilineage, his broken-down Pontiac, his out-of-state husband (who the narrator has also slept with), and, maybe most of all, the universe between the rabbi’s legs. Spending time together in the narrator's bed, in a tiny town near Hoboken, New Jersey, that our narrator is “devastated to admit is my personal address,” a tender, volatile intimacy brews and curdles. To sustain it, the narrator continues on an unrelenting, increasingly urgent quest to understand the mercurial, ardent rabbi's mysterious past—that is, until he begins to question reality itself. In the process, conflicting truths about the rabbi emerge, with drastic consequences for both men and those around them.
The first novel in nearly twenty years from one of our most acclaimed stylists, Wayne Koestenbaum’s My Lover, the Rabbi is a sui generis spiral of lascivious thrills and uncanny hilarity, exposing in delirious detail the dangers—and spoils—of true love.
The rabbi is, to the untrained eye, far from desirable. Lofty and unkempt, aging and constantly losing members of his flock, he is nonetheless the singular object of obsession for the self-abjecting narrator of My Lover, the Rabbi. From the start of their psychosexual affair, the two men torment, pleasure, and manipulate each other with ardor. When they’re apart, the narrator manically contemplates every element of the rabbi’s — his alluring adopted son, his false erudition, his patrilineage, his broken-down Pontiac, his out-of-state husband (who the narrator has also slept with), and, maybe most of all, the universe between the rabbi’s legs. Spending time together in the narrator's bed, in a tiny town near Hoboken, New Jersey, that our narrator is “devastated to admit is my personal address,” a tender, volatile intimacy brews and curdles. To sustain it, the narrator continues on an unrelenting, increasingly urgent quest to understand the mercurial, ardent rabbi's mysterious past—that is, until he begins to question reality itself. In the process, conflicting truths about the rabbi emerge, with drastic consequences for both men and those around them.
The first novel in nearly twenty years from one of our most acclaimed stylists, Wayne Koestenbaum’s My Lover, the Rabbi is a sui generis spiral of lascivious thrills and uncanny hilarity, exposing in delirious detail the dangers—and spoils—of true love.
464 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 17, 2026
647 people want to read
About the author
Wayne Koestenbaum
82 books175 followersWayne Koestenbaum has published five books of critical prose, including The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; and three books of poetry, including Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems. He is a Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 24, 2025
my literary version of heaven. neurotic erotic bliss.
October 31, 2025
First i was gooped. Then i was gagged. Then i was a little bored. Then horny. A poet’s novel in a unique sense of the term. Like getting dicked down by diction or sucked off by syntax.
Read
September 23, 2025What a strange novel. I did not expect anything less from Wayne Koestenbaum. Most chapters are less than a page long, which, in principle, should give the impression of speedy movement through the book—if not choppiness, which I usually hate. But no. I felt like a fly caught in amber, stuck in a viscous text - I can't call it a narrative because there isn't much of an arc - moving as slowly as sticky honey. If I may venture into some psychoanalysis, the short chapters are akin to object a, with their descriptions of dicks, asses, and bodily effluvia, while the entire text is the desire itself - immovable and insistent in all its sublime immensity.
October 12, 2025
I was really excited for this one. The theme and plot is just too bombastic and eye-catching to miss, so I was very happy when the publisher approved my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
"My Lover, the Rabbi" is kind of unlike any book I have ever read before, it has a rythm of its own, cooking a plot of secrets behind the chapters where we get to see the extent of the Rabbi and the main character's relationship/ obsession.
I have to admit that, although I was going for the ride that the author was creating for the book, at the middle point I was a little bored of being too blind-sided. Again, we only get glimpses of what it is proven to be a very strange age-gap relationship, their power dynamics and erotic exchanges. The narration also feels a bit clunky at times, but I figure that it is intentional to better explain the psyche of the main character.
It is a read that took me more time than usual, and, at the end, I feel like the payoff was not as good as it could have been. A lot of time was spent with this acclimation for the plot and the characters and then all of a sudden we are at the climax, with a resolution that was too quickly written for me.
Overall, this book has the ability of staying with you after the read and I guess that goes beyond certain rhythm issues and lack of development on some parts. The lack of further exploration also goes with the theme of this blind love and obsession, not only for the main character, but all the characters that are part of the Rabbi's life.
This not at all an easy read, but strangely, it is a book I would recommend--with some precautions.
"My Lover, the Rabbi" is kind of unlike any book I have ever read before, it has a rythm of its own, cooking a plot of secrets behind the chapters where we get to see the extent of the Rabbi and the main character's relationship/ obsession.
I have to admit that, although I was going for the ride that the author was creating for the book, at the middle point I was a little bored of being too blind-sided. Again, we only get glimpses of what it is proven to be a very strange age-gap relationship, their power dynamics and erotic exchanges. The narration also feels a bit clunky at times, but I figure that it is intentional to better explain the psyche of the main character.
It is a read that took me more time than usual, and, at the end, I feel like the payoff was not as good as it could have been. A lot of time was spent with this acclimation for the plot and the characters and then all of a sudden we are at the climax, with a resolution that was too quickly written for me.
Overall, this book has the ability of staying with you after the read and I guess that goes beyond certain rhythm issues and lack of development on some parts. The lack of further exploration also goes with the theme of this blind love and obsession, not only for the main character, but all the characters that are part of the Rabbi's life.
This not at all an easy read, but strangely, it is a book I would recommend--with some precautions.
October 1, 2025
I think that this is easily the best book that I have read this year. I out loud celebrated when I got an email saying I had received an ARC, and immediately dove in.
This is a book for a very particular person, I think, but I just so happened to be that exact person. It's gritty, language that makes you squirm at the exactness, and a story that doesn't do much to settle that feeling. At times, it felt so real and exact to the emotions of obsessiveness and unwavering idolization that I questioned if this was a real story.
It has teeny tiny chapters that help with the narration style, coming across as blurbs scribbled into a notebook, trying to get feelings and actions across through the narrator's own mind.
I totally loved it and can't wait to get it when it's published.
This is a book for a very particular person, I think, but I just so happened to be that exact person. It's gritty, language that makes you squirm at the exactness, and a story that doesn't do much to settle that feeling. At times, it felt so real and exact to the emotions of obsessiveness and unwavering idolization that I questioned if this was a real story.
It has teeny tiny chapters that help with the narration style, coming across as blurbs scribbled into a notebook, trying to get feelings and actions across through the narrator's own mind.
I totally loved it and can't wait to get it when it's published.
August 25, 2025
Hell of a ride of a novel. We get the story of a young gay man who falls into a situationship with a messy as hell rabbi and the cult he may or may not be leading, and the other men in his life. The rabbi becomes a point of obsession for our main character, and the viscerality that gets described in this novel is unhinged, in the best kind of way. Definitely pick it up when it comes out this spring.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I requested and received an eARC of
My Lover, the Rabbi
by Wayne Koestenbaum via NetGalley. The rabbi, to the disinterested observer, is far from desirable. Despite being untidy, uncouth, aging, and unable to maintain his following, he is the object of the narrator's obsession. Their relationship is defined by a mixture of torment and pleasure. Whether they're hundred miles apart of sharing the same bed, rabbi occupies the narrator's mind fully. He contemplates very facet of his being, relentlessly dissecting his life, his history, his past, his possibilities, his genitalia, his pubic hair, his husband, his car, his dead son, his dead wife, his attractive adopted son. He tries to unspool the secret threads of the rabbi's past, but finds himself questioning everything he knows to be true.
What a disgusting and beautiful ride My Lover, the Rabbi turned out to be. This is by no means a traditional story. The narrative is initially made up of one-or-two page chapters that strike the reader like lightning bolts. The bones may feel familiar, but the intentional and chaotic construction of obsession in Koestenbaum’s novel is fresh, fascinating, and occasionally frustrating. It may feel difficult to pull all the threads together when initially beginning the story, but once you’ve gotten into the groove of things it becomes an altogether different experience. The later chapters really fill in the gaps, or at least some of them, but never veer too far away from the fantastical qualities of the novel’s first half.
Who is the Rabbi? So many parts of him feel like a lecherous everyman, while other details are startingly specific. Through the narrator’s relentless musings, the Rabbi came to life for me. The textures and smells of his body, his desires and his hypocrisies, his manipulations and sexual sermonizing all began to echo in my mind as grossly familiar as the oft repeated “my lover, the Rabbi.” And who is the narrator? What does his relationship with the Rabbi say about him? I still have a thousand questions swirling around in my mind after finishing My Lover, the Rabbi. It’s a strange and provocative, yet satisfying novel that interrogates questions of identity, religion, obsession, and sexual liberation.
What a disgusting and beautiful ride My Lover, the Rabbi turned out to be. This is by no means a traditional story. The narrative is initially made up of one-or-two page chapters that strike the reader like lightning bolts. The bones may feel familiar, but the intentional and chaotic construction of obsession in Koestenbaum’s novel is fresh, fascinating, and occasionally frustrating. It may feel difficult to pull all the threads together when initially beginning the story, but once you’ve gotten into the groove of things it becomes an altogether different experience. The later chapters really fill in the gaps, or at least some of them, but never veer too far away from the fantastical qualities of the novel’s first half.
Who is the Rabbi? So many parts of him feel like a lecherous everyman, while other details are startingly specific. Through the narrator’s relentless musings, the Rabbi came to life for me. The textures and smells of his body, his desires and his hypocrisies, his manipulations and sexual sermonizing all began to echo in my mind as grossly familiar as the oft repeated “my lover, the Rabbi.” And who is the narrator? What does his relationship with the Rabbi say about him? I still have a thousand questions swirling around in my mind after finishing My Lover, the Rabbi. It’s a strange and provocative, yet satisfying novel that interrogates questions of identity, religion, obsession, and sexual liberation.
October 19, 2025
This was just too weird even for me. The short chapters should have made me feel like I was flying through it but in reality the book dragged quite a bit for me. It was written in such a way that I just found it hard to find a rhythm. The actual subject of the book itself was (I guess) intentionally uncomfortable but the constant shock after shock reveal was just a bit much, with little pay off or explanation.
Not for me sadly.
Not for me sadly.
October 28, 2025
What a weird little book with weird little chapters and weird little ways of depicting a relationship that was also pretty weird. I went into it expecting it to be pretty weird, but I feel like it just didn't bring much else to it for me. I'm all for weird little books but I need something else to keep me there and sadly this one didn't have much else for me and some chapters had me rolling my eyes with impatience. Also this was not a sexy book about sex, if that makes sense.
December 30, 2025
There are two different ways to tell a story: stick to the facts and keep things as physically accurate as possible, or tell a less factual story that's more true to the emotions the characters were experiencing. This falls heavily in the second category.
Our two main characters, the Rabbi and our narrator, are never directly named; a bold choice which works fabulously in the story. It's written in first person which was a very good choice as well because of how it draws the reader into the story before absolutely waterboarding them with prose. Being so close to the story makes it even harder to tell how much of the story is actually happening and how much is skewed by the narrator's emotions.
I found this book hilarious and surprising all the way through, though it did lose me in the second half (though I think this has more to do with my trouble reading books online than it does the quality of the book itself). Once published, I'll definitelly be getting myself a copy so I can give it a proper read through.
Favorite sections: 11, 16, 28, 37, 44, 49, 63, 66, 85, 88
Our two main characters, the Rabbi and our narrator, are never directly named; a bold choice which works fabulously in the story. It's written in first person which was a very good choice as well because of how it draws the reader into the story before absolutely waterboarding them with prose. Being so close to the story makes it even harder to tell how much of the story is actually happening and how much is skewed by the narrator's emotions.
I found this book hilarious and surprising all the way through, though it did lose me in the second half (though I think this has more to do with my trouble reading books online than it does the quality of the book itself). Once published, I'll definitelly be getting myself a copy so I can give it a proper read through.
Favorite sections: 11, 16, 28, 37, 44, 49, 63, 66, 85, 88
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews