In the second novel from Paul Goldberg (The Yid, 2016), we meet Bill Katzenelenbogen, an award-winning science reporter who has come upon hard times after being fired for insubordination by The Washington Post. With no other lucrative prospects and a quickly dwindling bank account, 52-year-old Bill takes the only lead he can get, which is to investigate the mysterious and unusual death of Miami’s most prominent butt plastic surgeon, Dr. Wronski, aka the “Butt God of Miami Beach.”
Too poor to afford anything else, Bill is forced to stay with his estranged father, Melsor Katzenelenbogen, and stepmother, Nella, in what once was a grand, oceanfront condominium called the Château Sedan Neuve in South Florida. A Russian Jewish immigrant, 83-year-old Melsor is on his own secret quest to unravel the money-laundering shenanigans of the Château’s condominium association. For Bill, who thinks he has escaped the politics of D.C., it doesn’t take long to get sidetracked from the late Butt God investigation by the tangled political games at the Château, which—with Goldberg's wit and ingenuity—on a micro level parallel the real-world political drama that has been unfolding on our TV screens and newspapers throughout the Trump administration.
Full of dark humor, cheap vodka, Russian poems and political anecdotes, The Château somehow perfectly captures the political travesty that is all too real in this day and age.
