{"id":95554,"date":"2025-08-25T21:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95554\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T21:13:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T21:13:17","slug":"in-serge-family-can-be-a-real-pain-in-the-tuches-the-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/95554\/","title":{"rendered":"In “Serge,” family can be a real pain in the tuches \u2013 The Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"French<\/p>\n

French playwright Yasmina Reza\u2019s novel \u2018Serge\u2019 makes its English debut this fall. Photo by Andrew Harrer\/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Olivia<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tBy Olivia Haynie<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tAugust 25, 2025\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Serge
By Yazmina Reza, translated from the French by Jeffrey Zuckerman
\u00c9ditions Flammarion, 224 pages, $18<\/p>\n

In Yazmina Reza\u2019s novel Serge, the three Popper siblings embark on a family trip to Auschwitz to find traces of their family who perished there. This story is by now a familiar one, given the recent popularity of media about Holocaust tourism<\/a>. However, unlike A Real Pain, Auschwitz does not bring the characters in Serge closer together \u2014 it drives them further apart.<\/p>\n

A spin-off of her play Art \u2014 which will have a limited revival on Broadway this fall, starring Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden, and Bobby Cannavele \u2014 Reza\u2019s Serge is an examination of the titular character through the eyes of his younger brother, Jean Popper. In Art, Serge, trying to prove himself as a purveyor of fine art, spends an extravagant amount of money on a fairly simple painting \u2014 a series of white lines atop a background that is also white. This purchase spirals into a conflict with two of his close friends that threatens to tear their relationship apart. First published in French in 2021, Serge takes a deeper look at this character and the many missteps he\u2019s made in a difficult life.<\/p>\n

\"Free<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s strengths are its well-written characters and its deft portrayal of difficult family members trying to learn to live with one another. However, Reza\u2019s ability to pull you into the characters\u2019 lives also creates the biggest challenge for reading the book: Serge is utterly unlikeable.<\/p>\n

A cheater, a bully, and a chronic whiner, Serge spends most of the book insulting people and wallowing in his own self pity. As he does in Art, he makes rash decisions and assumes he knows best. He also shies away from any obligations that involve caring for others; he avoids visiting a dying cousin until it\u2019s too late. Throughout the story, we watch his personal relationships slowly fall apart due to his obnoxious behavior.<\/p>\n

Things get to a boiling point during the trip the brothers take to Auschwitz with their sister Nana and Serge\u2019s daughter Jos\u00e9phine. Nana lambastes Serge for constantly criticizing others instead of taking steps to improve his own, dismal life. By most accounts, he has failed as an adult; he can\u2019t keep a job, he constantly loses money, his longtime partner has left him for being unfaithful, and he is perpetually unhappy.<\/p>\n

And yet Jean seems to have an affinity for Serge, always making up an excuse for his behavior and sometimes parroting it. He blames Serge\u2019s rudeness on the stress of traveling. Instead of validating the feelings of his sister or niece after Serge insults them. Jean tries to dispel the tension with humor. When Serge moves his daughter, Jos\u00e9phine, to tears by refusing to participate in part of the camp tour, Jean suggests he act more kindly but in the end, takes Serge\u2019s side, rushing Jos\u00e9phine to finish the tour.<\/p>\n

Jean also appears to have adopted Serge\u2019s low views of women. Their girlfriends and female family members are only ever depicted as being hysterical or superficial. Jean\u2019s not a Casanova like Serge \u2014 and even seriously dreams about the benefits of settling down \u2014 but when Serge jokes about how upset his girlfriend was upon uncovering his affair, Jean joins in, laughing with Serge about his encounters with his mistress, giving no regard to the woman who has been betrayed.<\/p>\n

This sympathy may be explained by the siblings\u2019 childhood. Jean witnessed Serge being physically and emotionally abused by their egotistical father, often over incidents as trivial as a chess game. He notes that Serge has inherited their father\u2019s \u201cknack for humiliation\u201d and \u201cbouts of mild insanity.\u201d The only time Jean unabashedly criticizes Serge is when, after they have returned to France, Serge insults a socially awkward boy Jean has taken under his wing.<\/p>\n

The novel ends with the siblings reunited at a doctor\u2019s appointment where Serge will undergo a procedure to learn if he has cancer. Even though, in the end, the family comes back together, Serge has seemed to learn nothing\u00a0\u2014there is no character development, no moment where he apologizes for his behavior and tries to be more cooperative. In fact, none of the characters make any big transformations. The feeling that everyone is treading water makes for a difficult read, but it also feels real. How often do difficult family members wake up one day and surprise you with introspection?\u00a0 How many people walk away from a loved one they know is never going to stop being a complete pain in their tuchus?<\/p>\n

Readers may wish for a moment when Serge finally receives his karma, but the irony is he is his own punishment. No matter how much he complicates the lives of others, Serge is hurting himself the most.<\/p>\n

Olivia Haynie is an editorial fellow at the Forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"French playwright Yasmina Reza\u2019s novel \u2018Serge\u2019 makes its English debut this fall. Photo by Andrew Harrer\/Bloomberg via Getty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134],"class_list":["post-95554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-books","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}