The Betrayers

A Novel

By: David Bezmozgis

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

These incandescent pages give us one fraught, momentous day in the life of Baruch Kotler, a Soviet Jewish dissident who now finds himself a disgraced Israeli politician. When he refuses to back down from a contrary but principled stand regarding the settlements in the West Bank, his political opponents expose his affair with a mistress decades his junior, and the besieged couple escapes to Yalta, the faded Crimean resort of Kotler's youth. There, shockingly, Kotler encounters the former friend whose denunciation sent him to the Gulag almost forty years earlier.

In a whirling twenty-four hours, Kotler must face the ultimate reckoning, both with those who have betrayed him and with those whom he has betrayed, including a teenage daughter, a son facing his own moral dilemma in the Israeli army, and the wife who once campaigned to secure his freedom and stood by him through so much.

Stubborn, wry, and self-knowing, Baruch Kotler is one of the great creations of contemporary fiction. An aging man grasping at a final passion, he is drawn inexorably into a crucible that is both personal and biblical in scope.

In prose that is elegant, sly, precise, and devastating in its awareness of the human heart, David Bezmozgis has rendered a story for the ages, an inquest into the nature of fate and consequence, love and forgiveness. The Betrayers is a high-wire act, a powerful tale of morality and sacrifice that will haunt readers long after they turn the final page.

Critic reviews

"This unforgettable novel squanders no words in its brilliant, deft depictions of love, of memory, of compassion-and, ultimately, despite its title, of loyalty."

-Edith Pearlman, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the National Book Award for Binocular Vision

"The Betrayers presents us with the novel-as-scalpel, a brilliant dissection of lives formed and deformed by tyranny, temptation, and the demands of conscience. Just when we think we've arrived at the heart of the story's moral complexity, Bezmozgis cuts again and lays bare yet another layer. It's harrowing, but also thrilling, to see our nature revealed with such unflinching precision. This outstanding novel not only shows Bezmozgis at the top of his form, but also definitively establishes him as one of the foremost writers of his generation."

--Ben Fountain, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and LA Times Book Prize and finalist for the National Book Award for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

"In this taut, fierce, forensically insightful novel, David Bezmozgis explores the frictions between goodness and kindness, public and private virtue, forgiveness and forgetting. Compulsive and profound."—A. D. Miller, finalist for the Man Booker Award for Snowdrops

"The Betrayers is a moral thriller in the tradition of Bernard Malamud, but the generosity, grace, and wisdom of the writing belong entirely to David Bezmozgis. The magic of fiction is that it makes the reader care deeply about imaginary strangers, and Bezmozgis is a magician."—Aleksandar Hemon

PRAISE FOR NATASHA AND OTHER STORIES:

"Dazzling, hilarious, and hugely compassionate narratives [written with] freshness and precision ... Readers will find themselves laughing out loud, then gasping as Bezmozgis brings these fictions to the searing, startling, and perfectly pitched conclusions that remind us that, as Babel said, 'no iron can stab the heart so powerfully as a period put in exactly in the right place.'"—Francine Prose, People

"Scary good...Not a line or note in the book rings false."—Esquire

"Extraordinary...[Recalls] the work of Babel, Roth, Saul Bellow, and so many others. Yet Bezmozgis makes these characters, and the state of marginality itself, uniquely his. This hysterical, merciless, yet open-hearted excavation of a Jewish family in the process of assimilating gives his literary predecessors a run for their money."—Daniel Schifrin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

Brilliant novel by David Bezmozgis

I'm giving this audiobook five stars, but only because the system won't allow me to give it six. I'm not sure which was better: the captivating story that is at once character and plot driven, or the wonderful performance by the narrator that makes listening to this book almost a cinematic experience. This is a book group selection, by far my favorite in the past several years. Poignant, tragic, and yet also hilarious at times, this is a best seller for good reasons. Cannot recommend this book enough. And the narrator should win a Grammy.

Jewish Kitsch

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

my mother

What was most disappointing about David Bezmozgis’s story?

everyone is all strong and good, except for the bad guy

Which scene was your favorite?

the villain, constructing himself as a victim and turning everything to self-pity, even while he is having a stroke

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

it is short, despite the reader's glacial pace.

Any additional comments?

A short and shallow tale of god's justice delivered through Solomonic Israeli politicians, self-sacrificing sabras, resolute Israeli women, self-pitying traitors, etc. Hadassah chapters everywhere will love it, and Bezmozgis will dine out on this little book for years to come.
Now, with this crowd-pleaser behind him, he can resume his insightful accounts of the heartbreaks of immigrant life, their dislocated perspectives on their new homes in the US or Canada, and the casual cruelties they endure.

Not Happy With The Betrayers

The narration was excellent, but I found the story hard to follow and uninteresting. It is about a Jew who betrayed another innocent Jew during the Holocaust who consequently went to prison for thirteen years. By accident they met thirty years later and recognized each other. How they each dealt with each other is the crux of the story.

Terrible ending...

It was like the author forgot to write seem ending. Not a huge fan of this book.