''Never Mind the Goldbergs'' is a 2005 novel by

Matthue Roth Matthew "Matthue" Roth (born June 30, 1978) is an American columnist, author, poet, spoken word performer, video game designer, and screenwriter. Beginning his career as a slam poet in San Francisco, Roth gained attention for his unusual blend o ...

. Its plot follows the seventeen-year-old Hava Aaronson, an Orthodox Jewish girl living in New York City, as she is invited to live in Hollywood for the summer to star on a fictional television show, ''The Goldbergs''.

Plot summary

Living in Los Angeles is Hava's first experience living outside the Orthodox Jewish world, however, and she finds herself questioning her relationship to Judaism, to Orthodoxy, and to God. These are illustrated through quirky, often humorous episodes, including one where Hava is unwittingly kept working until Shabbos, and another where she stumbles into a man who may or may not be Orson Welles. The book's unconventional tone and unpredictable nature have elicited comparisons to Kurt Vonnegut and

Francesca Lia Block Francesca Lia Block (born December 3, 1962) is an American writer of adult and young-adult literature. She is known for the ''Weetzie Bat'' series, which she began while a student at UC Berkeley. Early life Block was born in Los Angeles to a p ...

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The book's centerpiece, a scene where Hava and her friend Moish flee the sitcom set and road-trip to Berkeley, California. Some of the personalities are based on real people, including an Orthodox film director and a Hasidic rebbetzin who is also a hip-hop M.

Background

Roth has admitted that much of the book pertains to his own struggle between his Orthodox religion, punk culture, and not fitting in with other fundamentalist

Its title was not originally intended as a reference to The Goldbergs (broadcast series), The Goldbergs, the radio show created by Gertrude Berg in 1929, which Roth has said he discovered halfway through writing the novel, but he kept it as a

panegyric A panegyric ( or ) is a formal public speech or written verse, delivered in high praise of a person or thing. The original panegyrics were speeches delivered at public events in ancient Athens. Etymology The word originated as a compound of grc, ...

Reception

Since its release, the book has become embraced by a small cult following in the Orthodox and

Hasidic Hasidism, sometimes spelled Chassidism, and also known as Hasidic Judaism (Ashkenazi Hebrew: חסידות ''Ḥăsīdus'', ; originally, "piety"), is a Jewish religious group that arose as a spiritual revival movement in the territory of contem ...

communities. 2005 American novels Jewish American novels Novels set in Los Angeles {{2000s-novel-stub