“Reich is a fierce satirist, tackling the traditions and contradictions, humor and trauma of Jewish American life. Her seventh novel, following the short-story collection, The House of Love and Prayer (2023), is a fuming, fulminating, and wily response to the pitfalls of the #MeToo movement. Appalled by the convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, a different wealthy Jeffrey Epstein converts an old Catskills hotel and resort into an upscale center “for the re-education of #MeToo offenders.” Camp Jeff attracts “true celebrities,” including the narcissistic “literary powerhouse and public intellectual” Gershon Gordon. . . . As COVID-19 and new arrivals complicate the camp's mission, and Gershon foments an insurrection, Reich slyly takes on misogyny, hypocrisy, trendy therapies, genuine trauma, and antisemitism, the "oldest hatred in the world.” An audacious and righteous torrent of wisecracks and ironies that coheres into a whirlwind of “divine apocalyptic madness.””
– Booklist
“A disgraced writer fails to confront or acknowledge his crimes in Tova Reich’s discomfiting novel Camp Jeff.
Jeffrey Epstein (not that one) founded Camp Jeff to rehabilitate people like Gershon, a high-profile author brought down by hashtag-related accusations. Blaming all of his and the other campers’ troubles on antisemitism, Gershon commits himself to a path of revolution that may destroy all he claims to be fighting for. Beginning with a literary punch in the face, the book dives into its irreverent, daring plot with no mercy and remains unflinching throughout. The stream-of-consciousness prose allows Gershon to expel all manner of self-pitying, self-serving musings about his “inevitable” comeback, reminisce about time spent palling around with Jeffrey Epstein (yes, that one), and heap outrageous abuse on Hedy, the only employee at the camp who cares about his well-being. A repugnant figure, his place on the victim-to-villain scale is complicated by his unreliable memory and the abuse that hehimself may have endured as a teenager.
Camp Jeff itself reflects the state of its inhabitants: a rundown, half-refurbished wreck of what was once a glorious resort in the Catskill Mountains’ Borscht Belt. Eschewing the camp’s bombastic rehabilitation program, Gershon burrows deeper into his religion and, with Hedy’s help, hatches a plot to erase antisemitism—to his twisted yet compelling mind, the real and sole evil behind his downfall—forever.
The arrival of COVID-19 presents an unexpected, high-stakes twist, but, thanks to Gershon’s intelligence and stubbornness, it enhances rather than derails his scheming. All of his plans—and Camp Jeff’s failure to stop him—lead to a finale as outlandish and disturbing as the characters who orchestrated it. Brimming with the blackest humor, Camp Jeff is a satirical novel about the difficulties of seeking justice when the guilty are incapable of remorse.”
– Foreword (Starred Review)
“Sacred cows of all sorts are skewered by Reich in a broad satire of contemporary mores.
Gershon Gordon, a “world famous literary powerhouse and public intellectual,” is a resident at Camp Jeff, a reeducation center for those who have found themselves implicated by the #MeToo movement—or caught in the hashtag, as Reich wryly puts it. The camp is named after its benefactor, the “good” Jeffrey Epstein, a cosmetics tycoon who refuses to let his name be ruined by the infamous bearer of the same name. Gershon’s own name is a refinement of his given name, George Gordon, also the name of Lord Byron as well as a Protestant who led riots against Catholics mentioned in Dickens. Slippery nomenclature is just one of many verbal sleights of hand Reich plays in her densely packed narrative of Gershon’s attempts to game the systems at Camp Jeff for his own purposes. The primary therapeutic method at Camp Jeff is Zoyaroyan Psychoempathy—named after one of at least three Zoyas playing a part in the novel—which allows Reich to take aim not only at sexual predators but at purveyors of sketchy self-help models. As the madcap plot unfolds, Reich explores themes of antisemitism, Jewish culture in America, and misogyny. At several points along the way to the novel’s apocalyptic resolution, she takes a deep dive into Talmudic studies, too. With the book taking place just before and during the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the mass hysteria and uncertainty surrounding that disruption comports nicely with the general tone of upheaval as old rules give way to the new. Stereotypes of many sorts—the stern nurse, the mousy female academic, the pederest priest—are present in the cast of characters Reich uses to make her point.
Reich comically airs out many grievances.”
– Kirkus Reviews
“Fans of absurdist comedy ought to take a look.”
– Publishers Weekly
