[8] In 2012, Auslander published his first novel, Hope: A Tragedy, a finalist for the 2013 Thurber Prize, which envisions a homeowner in upstate New York finding an elderly and foul-mouthed Anne Frank hiding in his attic.
Auslander wrote and created the Showtime television program Happyish, which shot a pilot with Philip Seymour Hoffman, whom he met while adapting his novel Hope: A Tragedy for the screen.
After Hoffman's death on February 2, 2014, it appeared that the TV project would be discontinued, but it was recast with Steve Coogan in the lead role and premiered on 5 April 2015.
A dark comedy about the cost of identity politics and the weight of the past upon the present, it was called a "riotous dissection of cultural formation" by Publishers Weekly and a "brilliant satire on tribalism" by Booklist.
In the Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks wrote: "Everyone has different ideas about what's funny, and for me, the gold standard is dark Jewish humor—the more masochistic and taboo, the better.
"[14] Its omission from the Booker Longlist prompted an op-ed in The Times to ask, "But why no Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander, which is funny, in bad taste and a satire of identity politics?