Tell Me How This Ends Well by David Samuel Levinson is a highly recommended novel featuring black humor, a dysfunctional family, and an anti-Semitic America.

It's 2022 and the Jacobson family is gathering for Passover in Los Angeles. Jacobson siblings Mo, Edith, and Jacob are also plotting to kill their father, the despicable, abusive Julian who has made their lives and their mother Roz's life miserable. Now Roz only has a few months left to live and the siblings are sure Julian is trying to hurry her death along so he can have complete control of her inherited fortune. After putting up with his emotional, verbal, and sometimes physical abuse for years and watching their mother's plight, it is time to end Julian's reign of terror while the whole family is together to celebrate Passover. This is assuming, naturally, that the three can work together and put old grudges aside.

The novel is told in four large sections by each of the siblings and Roz. Then there is a final word by Jacob.
Jacob Jacobson is the gay son who is currently a playwright living in Berlin with his German lover, Dietrich. Jacob and Dietrich have traveled together for what Jacob is sure will be the last time he sees his mother alive.
Edith Jacobson Plunkett, or Thistle, is currently a divorced college ethics professor who has a sexual harassment suit filed against her.
Moses Orenstein-Jacobson, or Mo, is an actor married to Pandora. They have triplets and twins, all boys, and starred in their own reality TV show called The JacobSONS! The family is meeting at their home, where the Passover Seder will be filmed as a special episode of The JacobSONS!
Rosalyn Jacobson, or Roz, the mother of the three, has a surprising chapter of revelations and insights.

Along with the back stories of the four and the current murder plot of the three siblings, there is also plenty of insight into all the abuse Julian heaped upon his family. Julian is a truly evil character with no redeeming qualities at all and continues in the novel to verbally and physically abuse his family. You will want to see him get what he deserves and appreciate the black humor as his demise is debated. The siblings are not lovable characters either, but even with all of their flaws they are definitely better than Julian.

Added to the whole grim atmosphere is the less humorous and more insidious anti-Semitism running rampant in this not-to-distant-future America. In 2022 Israel is no more, after a war during which the United States did nothing. Now 4 million Jewish refugees have relocated to the U.S., which has resulted in a violent xenophobic reaction and constant domestic terrorism.

Tell Me How This Ends Well is very well written and I liked the chapters narrated from the point-of-view of an individual sibling. The characters are extremely well-developed. While some of the action is a bit farcical, it is entertaining - and disturbing. The best part of the novel is the inept plotting of the three siblings. Some of their actions and reactions are humorous and make the novel a pleasure to read. The increasing and ever present anti-Semitism is just disturbing and upsetting; it is perhaps a bit too realistic in this particular setting.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Hogarth.

We time travel to the future with new friends in Tell Me How This Ends Well, the Jacobson family. Author, David Samuel Levinson, takes us to the year 2022. It is the week leading up to Passover, the month of April in California. We meet the family members, Moses and his wife Pandora who are hosting the Passover Seder with their brood of children, twins, Baxter and Dexter, and the triplets, Brandon, Brendan, and Bronson. Mo is the oldest son of the Julien and Roz Jacobson. Next is the sister, Edith who has been married and divorced and had some turbulent relationships over the years while being a professor at Emory University. Jacob, the youngest though already an adult, is living with his male partner in Berlin, Germany. He and Dietrich have flown over from Germany to join the family for the Seder, which we find out will be aired on television live as a episode on the reality show that stars Mo, a frustrated actor, and his family.

The reader learns that in 2022 in the United States, being Jewish is dangerous. Israel has been defeated and displaced Israelis are trying to come to America. There is incredible prejudice here against Jews and there are even bombings on the Los Angeles highways. Edith reflects on the situation of being Jewish in the US, “She saw their proliferation throughout the southern United States as an unexpected silver lining to the thundercloud that had been the final annihilation of Israel - a population of swarthy, desperate-to-assimilate Jewish men who, along with the women and children of the former Jewish state (though she had less use for them) had been “transitioned” abroad after Syria, Iran and Lebanon had invaded, conquered, and carved Israel up. They’d put up a good fight, the Israelis, but they couldn’t make a go of it alone - the four million Israeli refugees America had accepted, the price the country had paid for its shocking in excusable neutrality nee isolationism.”

We see how the Jacobson family works together to get along through the holiday of Passover. They bring with them the baggage of their childhood. Growing up in an unstable family with an abusive father and complicit mother. Each of the siblings brings their different personalities and conflicts continued from the dysfunctional household to this current dinner table.

Around this family swirls the anti-Semitic storm outside, while the author also creates this interesting juxtaposition, with the German boyfriend Dietrich being the calming, rational force.
There is a point in the book where Jacob tells the family that they should join him in Berlin.
He insists that Jews all over Europe are heading to live in Germany, where they are protected under the law.

This book is written with a very chaotic feel of disjointedness, jumping around in the storylines. Living in a world that has lost its compass. The character of Pandora in the second novel really makes me feel like she has opened her box and we cannot stuff all the words, emotions and thoughts back inside fast enough.

Moses, Jacob and Edith are siblings. Their parents are Rosayln and Julian. Rosalyn has received a fatal diagnosis. Odds on favorite is that she will pass away before her husband. Julian is an asshole. For as long as the kids can remember, he says hurtful, vindictive and hateful thing. If their Mom passes away first, who is going to take care of their Dad? None of them want to take him on. The solution they decide upon is to kill him.

And so begins this very funny story. Each of the adult children narrates a section of the story. With this, we not only learn the history of each of them, but also see how the plot to off their Dad progresses. I liked this for the chaos and quirkiness, along with the reflection on family life and relationships.

For all of the silliness through most of the book, the last chapter turns a bit more serious. It is narrated by Rosalyn. It brought an interesting closure to the story and was somewhat unexpected.

ARC from Crown Publishing via Netgally. Publish date: April 4, 2017.

This book jumps right in, and gets at the heart of family dynamics familiar to all of us at some level.

This well intentioned and written novel just had too much going on for me. In addition, I didn't find any of the characters likable or sympathetic, which made it that much harder to enjoy. There's just so much-Julian is horrible and frankly Mo, Edith, and Jacob aren't much better (but who can expect them to be given their childhood.) 2022 is not that far away so this isn't really "dystopian" to me. I appreciate that Netgalley granted me an ARC but this is not one I enjoyed. Others might find humor in it or a message but I was just creeped out.

The prose is an arresting and densely packed mosh of highbrow and lowbrow that I found very appealing. The story itself hits that sweetspot-for-me of being simultaneously unbelievable and perfectly true-to-life--meaning, as I read I kept thinking both "that would never happen" and "wow, that's exactly what the world is like these days."

I do agree with comparisons others have made with author Harold Jacobson, only because he is the closest I can think of to the uniquely dark/comic mix this novel offers--but it is not a close affinity--Levinson has his own vision and it's frankly much more wide-ranging in its willingness to explore extremes of both dark and light.

I'm amazed by the prescience of the novel--although anti-Semitism is ever-present, this novel seems to have predicted a certain dark reality in current America that was less apparent even a few months ago, when the novel was set in galleys. It offers an interesting perspective on Germany, as well, and its current role in the world. I'm glad to have read it.

Well, we have everything here: the dysfunctional Jewish family, the daughter without any children, the gay youngest son with the much younger German boyfriend, the older brother without a 'real' job but a reality TV job, and grandchildren no one can tell apart. They have travelled from far away to celebrate this last Passover together because they believe their mother is dying and they hate their father. They've decided to kill their father; before or after Seder, we're not sure yet. The America they live in has become an Anti-Semitic paradise for everyone else; for them, time's a wasting. Did I like the book? The title was for me a continuing refrain as I read it. I couldn't figure out how it could redeem itself. Parts are good; parts are annoying; parts are just tiring. Why love a mother so much who failed to protect you? Why ask why, when the story is convoluted enough? I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

This book is weird, in the greatest sense of that word. It was a fascinating look at future society. Really funny and insightful. Loved it.

I have rarely been so confused about how much I like a book. It took me a while to realize this is a dark comedy/dramedy about a murderously dysfuntional Jewish family facing a world in 2022 which eerily is a time of rampant anti-Semitism.

Here's the confusion for me, it has so many plots and sub-plots that it is hard to pull out the thread of the one that is most significant. The family convenes at a Passover Seder in California facing a tyrannical father, who they want to murder, to ease the final months of their dying mother. Oh, the family is involved in a reality TV show, the gay brother has brought home his German lover and the sister is in a career explosion over a morals issue. The father, Julian is finally killed but not as planned. The family colluded in the cover up. Lots going on!

The book keeps getting better as we read and have the insights into the absurdity of the plot. I was shocked by the final twist.