Joking apart | 24 November 2016

A horse walks into a bar.… David Grossman takes the opening line of an old joke for his title, which could be a signal of comedy to come; and indeed he strews his novel’s pages with punchlines — good, bad-taste and groan-worthy. But this is gallows humour at its darkest: Grossman beckons us into a basement comedy club in an Israeli town, and uses the world of stand-up to explore not jokes but the nature of guilt.

We stick with the comedian Dovaleh G from the moment he stumbles on to the stage till he exits two hours later. There are Israeli in-jokes — ‘How do paratroopers commit suicide? Jump off their ego onto their IQ’ — but long before the end, laughs have faded and applause has given way to hostility. Loyal fans expecting an evening of entertainment instead watch a man fall apart as he looks into himself and his past: the father who conflated tough love and punishment; the Holocaust-survivor mother with ‘vein embroidery’ on her wrists — reminders of suicide attempts.