Having come onto the literary scene with his darkly funny short story collection, “Beware of God,” and then later publishing the much-praised memoir “Foreskin’s Lament,” Shalom Auslander is now a novelist as well. “Hope: A Tragedy,” published early January, has garnered critical acclaim.

Janet Maslin, in her review for The New York Times called it “staggeringly nervy,” a suitable description for a story that imagines Anne Frank still alive and voluntarily living in an attic in the rural town of Stockton, New York.

David Ulin, in his review for the Los Angeles Times, said that Auslander is “onto something.” To find out what the is, you’ll have to come out to McNally Jackson on Thursday, February 2nd where he’ll be in conversation with Bookslut’s founder and editor, Jessa Crispin.

Shalom took some time out of his busy tour schedule to answer a few questions.

You mention in your interview with Leonard Lopate that you got into reading as a kid when you found a bookstore near your bus stop. Can you talk about what books you found there, why they appealed to you, and how they’ve influenced your own writing?
Well, I only went in because it was better than standing outside at the bus stop with the Chassidim heading back to my community. But books had always been a window for me to the outside world, and so it was almost as “wrong” to be in there as it had been to be in the porno stores I had just been visiting. The first book I bought there was “I Would Have Saved Them If I Could,” by Leonard Michaels, and I remember reading this story about a bunch of kids who go on the roof of their apartment building to spy on their rabbi having sex with his wife. He spots them, and in their panic, one slips and falls and dies. And I thought, “Holy shit. I like this.”

You’ve been touring around a bit for this book, any tips for fellow authors? Travel or otherwise?
They know what you’re doing with the body lotion.

You’ll be in conversation with Jessa Crispin from Bookslut at McNally Jackson on February 2nd. Do you two know each other? 
I think you mean “BookSkank.” We go way back.

I know sometimes authors prefer events where they’re in conversation with someone rather than going at it solo. Do you have any opinions on the different formats?
I like the format where the writer on stage is someone who isn’t me.

Hope: A Tragedy features Anne Frank having escaped the Holocaust and living in a farmhouse’s attic. Has there been any backlash from readers or the press about fictionally changing her fate?
No. Because they’re all anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers.