The Truth (with Jokes) by Al Franken

The Truth (with Jokes) by Al Franken

In a quiet rural village in late 19th-century France, an eleven-year-old boy is found dead in his room, sexually molested and strangled by an unknown assailant. The shocked townsfolk erupt in outrage: Who could have committed this horrible crime? Rumors immediately begin to fly and suspicions shift from one person to another as ignorant conjecture begins to feed on itself. At first a vagrant is suspected; he could have come in through the open window while passing through the town at night. But in a matter of days another story begins to circulate: the culprit must be Simon, the Jewish schoolmaster, and the murdered boy's uncle and guardian. Did he not, it is rumored, resent the fact that the boy was the product of a mixed Catholic-Jewish marriage and was raised Catholic by his now deceased mother? Despite the total lack of evidence against him, as a Jew in the midst of a predominantly Christian community, Simon is completely vulnerable to these vicious allegations. The web of mendacity that is quickly spun around him is the product of centuries of entrenched anti-Semitism and the long-standing bitter rivalry between the Catholic majority of the town and an emerging secular minority. Through political pressure by influential Catholic clergymen and the manipulation of public opinion, the Church deftly deflects the suspicions of some that the murderer is actually one of the Christian Brothers and succeeds in gaining advantage against the threat of encroaching secularism in the town. Based on his experiences with the infamous Dreyfus case, this powerful last novel by Emile Zola about the scape-goating of a Jewish schoolteacher is a chilling depiction of anti-Semitism fully embedded in European society and an eerie presentiment of the Holocaust that would sweep across the Continent only forty years later. But this is not the whole story, for Zola also brilliantly demonstrates how truth, though suppressed for a generation, slowly but inexorably comes to light through the dedication and perseverance of a few humble defenders, who remain unswerving in their demand for justice.

U.S. Senator Al Franken grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Before running for the Senate, Al spent 37 years as an Emmy award-winning comedy writer; author of I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!, Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, Lies (and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them), and Giant of the Senate; and radio talk show host. He has taken part in seven USO tours, visiting our troops overseas in Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait.

First elected to the Senate in 2008, and re-elected in 2014, he currently sits on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee; the Judiciary Committee; the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the Committee on Indian Affairs. He has been married to his wife, Franni, for 40 years.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780525949060
ISBN 10	0525949062
Title	The Truth (with Jokes)
Author	Al Franken
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Microfilm
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2005-11-01
Number of pages	352
Prizes	Short-listed for Quill Awards (Humor) 2006
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable