--- title: Review: Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings description: Moving Kings is the story of a modern-day King David canonical: https://time.com/4856224/the-moving-spirit/ author: Sarah Begley article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-13T10:35:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T16:32:17.049Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Review: Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings og:description: The novel tells the story of a modern-day King David og:url: https://time.com/4856224/the-moving-spirit/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt312d6bba8fbb7c4b/6988d5737cdbac519dd592d6/moving-kings-joshua-cohen.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: moving-kings-joshua-cohen og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings twitter:description: The novel tells the story of a modern-day King David twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt312d6bba8fbb7c4b/6988d5737cdbac519dd592d6/moving-kings-joshua-cohen.jpeg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: Joshua Cohen's _Moving Kings_ by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 13, 2017 10:35 AM UTC  by [Sarah Begley](https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/) ## Sarah Begley Jul 13, 2017 10:35 AM UTC Joshua Cohen has become one of America’s top young novelists with his fiction that draws on biblical stories, including [_Witz_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1564785882/?tag=timecom-20) (2010) and [_Book of Numbers_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812996917/?tag=timecom-20) (2015), both twists on classic Jewish themes. His new novel, [_Moving Kings_](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0399590188/?tag=timecom-20), is the tale of a modern-day King David: a moving and storage magnate named David King. He’s a sad clown with blue collar sensibilities and white collar bank accounts. And though the characters may not be particularly erudite, Cohen’s writing is filled with sharp turns of phrase and elegant rhythms. David is “local color, just out of his locale,” at a high-society party: “They probably thought he was physically tough. They probably thought he was in with the mob.” Cohen’s cadence is inflected with Hebrew, a language that David defines as “the speech of the beleaguered, the last exasperation before a spanking.” And a spanking is coming for David and his family. An Israeli cousin and his army friend come to work for David in New York, moving boxes but also evicting African Americans who’ve defaulted on their mortgage payments. The denouement is as vengeful as any Old Testament plot twist. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4856224/the-moving-spirit/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4856224/the-moving-spirit/"},"headline":"Review: Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings","datePublished":"2017-07-13T10:35:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T16:32:17.049Z","description":"The story of a modern-day King David","url":"https://time.com/4856224/the-moving-spirit/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt312d6bba8fbb7c4b/6988d5737cdbac519dd592d6/moving-kings-joshua-cohen.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sarah Begley","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sarah-begley/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt312d6bba8fbb7c4b/6988d5737cdbac519dd592d6/moving-kings-joshua-cohen.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"moving-kings-joshua-cohen","caption":"moving-kings-joshua-cohen","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4856224/the-moving-spirit/","name":"Review: Joshua Cohen's Moving Kings"}}]}] ```