Overview

A riotous comedy about the ghosts of the past and the surprises of the present, from the master of farce and winner of the Man Booker Prize 2010. One day, out of the blue, Henry Nagel inherits a sumptuous apartment in St John's Wood. Divine intervention? Or his late father's love nest? Henry doesn't know, but he is glad to escape the North. After nearly sixty years of angry disappointment, Henry's life is about to change. Not that the ghosts of Henry's past are prepared to disappear without a struggle - his old school-friend and rival Osmond 'Hovis' Belkin, currently enjoying success in Hollywood; his tragic great aunt Marghanita for whom Henry once entertained a dangerous passion; and his father Izzi, upholsterer turned illusionist, fire-eater and origamist, whose shade Henry interrogates relentlessly. But the present clamours as loudly as the past. His dyspeptic neighbour Lachlan wants his sympathy; Lachlan's sloppy red setter, Angus, wants a walk; and Moira, the waitress with the crooked smile and custard hair, seems to want him. Kicking and screaming every inch of the way, Henry realises he might finally be falling in love.

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9780099472162

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Reviews

"""Our funniest living writer"" Alison Pearson ""One of the country's very best writers. The British Philip Roth"" -- Jonathan Freedland ""Jacobson's writing is as luscious and funny as ever... You're never far from comic brilliance"" Daily Telegraph ""This is a beautifully rounded portrait of a man gazing into the prism of the past... And love, no less, is the key, exquisitely articulated and celebrated"" Sunday Telegraph ""Terrific... Jacobson is at the top of his form"" Evening Standard"

Jacobson is among the most exhilarating of intelligent contemporary novelists. <br>-- The Guardian <br> Painful, funny and highly readable. Jacobson is at the top of his verbal form here <br>-- The Evening Standard <br> Page for page and sentence for sentence, it confirms Jacobson as, by some distance, the cleverest, funniest, sharpest writer we have <br>-- The Sunday Telegraph <br> A rich, unrepentantly funny novel, full of vim and vigour and bolshie cleverness. Its prose pulsates with fresh images <br>-- The Observer <p> From the Hardcover edition.

Author Information

Howard Jacobson has written seventeen novels and six works of non-fiction. He won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Award in 2000 for The Mighty Walzer and then again in 2013 for Zoo Time. In 2010 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question; he was also shortlisted for the prize in 2014 for J.

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