Synopsis:
Acclaimed as Britain’s greatest and most underrated novelist, this is Howard Jacobson’s masterpiece.
One day, out of the blue, Henry Nagel receives a solicitor’s letter telling him he has inherited 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, where there is nothing to keep him. 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 friend and rival Osmond “Hovis” Belkin, currently enjoying a spectacularly successful career in Hollywood, his great aunt Marghanita for whom he once entertained a dangerous passion, and his father Izzi Nagel, 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 realizes he might finally be falling in love. Will love be the making of Henry?
Tender, funny and beautifully told, The Making of Henry is Howard Jacobson’s richest novel to date. The writing makes you gasp with pleasure, the story builds effortlessly to its crescendo of revelations and, above all, it adds a new warmth to his reputation as the most exhilaratingly intelligent of contemporary novelists.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Back Cover:
"He is our funniest living writer. . . . No writer cherishes the language more, flirts with it as furiously or leads it in directions that might incline sedate readers to dial [911] " Allison Pearson
"Jacobson is one of Britain's best postwar writers. . . . There's a dark side to his comedy, so dark that only comedy can deal with it." -- The Independent (London)
"The comic intelligence of David Lodge or Martin Amis. . . the expansiveness of John Updike and Philip Roth. . . . Exhilaratingly intelligent." -- The Guardian (London)
"A writer who can make you laugh out loud on the bus . . . Jacobson conjures up a tale that combines sexual comedy with the kind of expansive intelligence prized by the Booker judges. . . . Jacobson is due some recognition for his prodigious output." - The Observer
"Jacobson is one of Britain's best postwar writers. He's well known as a funny writer, but that undersells him. There's a dark side to his comedy, so dark that only comedy can deal with it." - The Independent
"Jacobson's . . . exuberant prose and Swiftian rage cause considerable collateral damage along the way." - The Sunday Times
"[Jacobson is] by some distance, the cleverest, funniest, sharpest writer we have." - The Sunday Telegraph
"Yes, it's true what they say about the Jacobson sense of humor. After the first couple of pages . . . you become certain that he can hone any sentence for maximum drollery, and that he'll find exactly the right word on every occasion." - The Daily Express
"Jacobson breathes vivid life into his characters, capturing their speech patterns exactly while describing their clothes, habitats, children, friends, food, and drink. All this is brought into sharp relief by his sardonic gift for creating the very believable and very funny situations in which his characters find themselves trapped." - The Daily Mail
"This is masterly writing; the language under tight control. . . .monstrously funny." - The Independent
"Jacobson's writing is as luscious and funny as ever. . .You're never far from comic brilliance." - The Telegraph
"This is a terrific novel, full of pert observations and salty insights into the ageing process - not just Henry's but the world's . . . . Jacobson is at the top of this form." --The Evening Standard
"A beautifully rounded portrait of a man gazing into the prism of the past in order to see the future. . . . A touching, picturesque tale . . . seriously funny." - The Sunday Telegraph
"Painfully funny." - The Sunday Times
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