Antitherapies, the debut novel by writer and mathematician Jacques Fux, brilliantly depicts the challenges facing a young Jewish man coming of age in Belo Horizonte, a major city in Brazil. It’s not surprising that Antitherapies, originally released in 2012, won Brazil’s prestigious São Paulo Prize for debut authors. Fux’ work of autofiction, essentially a fictionalized memoir, is rich with irresistibly rhythmic prose and thought-provoking musings. Cleverly told through twenty-one “anti-therapeutic” stream-of-consciousness sessions, the novel chronicles how Fux, as narrator and main character, considered a variety of careers and life paths. With each session, Fux weaves in the tension between cultural assimilation and Jewish identity, as well as how the trauma of the Holocaust weighs heavily on generations of Jews in the diaspora.
The novel begins with Fux describing himself as having been a “normal child,” but then adding that his childhood included “all the peculiarities of a Jewish kid living in the modern-day ghetto.” From there, Fux combines humor and magical realism to portray his youth as filled with suffocating love, dreams, desires, dramatic feuds, rejection, confusion, anxiety, and guilt. As he describes himself moving into adulthood, Fux shows how he was protected and cradled by his Jewish community while also exposed to painful situations, including a relentless bully. Because the novel is autofiction, Fux is at liberty to mix his life story with fabrications, blurring the separation between reality and fiction. Fux plays with the reader, admitting he has created false versions of events to rescue himself from painful memories.
Fux’s use of magical realism contributes to its haunting tone. Fux depicts himself as having been stalked by a dybbuk, generally described in Jewish folklore as a malicious or restless soul of a dead person that can possess living humans. As the novel progresses, Fux reveals more and more about his complicated relationship with the dybbuk, who represents all that the Jewish people lost in the Holocaust as well as the guilt and internalized fear within those who survived. Throughout his youth, Fux wrestles with the dybbuk’s relentless, heavy presence, plotting ways to silence him. While fantastical, Fux’s battle with the dybbuk is relatable to Jewish readers also haunted by intergenerational trauma.
Translated into English from its original Portuguese, the novel retains a poetic writing style and absurd juxtapositions. Fux uses short, emphatic sentences and repetition to draw readers into his mind and keep them moving with him through every winding — and sometimes chaotic — turn he makes. Fux also throws literary and cultural touchstones into his text, reminding the reader that his influences include authors like Philip Roth and Jorge Luis Borges. Bouncing between profound psychological distress, such as an ever-present fear of Nazi destruction, and basic realities of teenage life, such as sexual desires, Fux fills his frenetic, breathless narrative with a biting humor. Overall, Fux’s debut novel will likely resonate with Jewish readers throughout the diaspora, as well as draw new fans with his intoxicating prose.
Anna Stolley Persky, a journalist and lawyer by background, writes fiction and creative nonfiction. She’s been published in The Washington Post, Mystery Tribune, Ellery Queen, and Pithead Chapel.
