Synopses & Reviews
Man Booker Prize-winner Howard Jacobson's brilliant and profound new novel,
J, "invites comparison with George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World" (
Sunday Times, London). Set in a world where collective memory has vanished and the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited, J is a boldly inventive love story, both tender and terrifying.
Kevern Cohen doesn't know why his father always drew two fingers across his lips when he said a word starting with a J. It wasn't then, and isn't now, the time or place to be asking questions. When the extravagantly beautiful Ailinn Solomons arrives in his village by a sea that laps no other shore, Kevern is instantly drawn to her. Although mistrustful by nature, the two become linked as if they were meant for each other. Together, they form a refuge from the commonplace brutality that is the legacy of a historic catastrophe shrouded in suspicion, denial, and apology, simply referred to as WHAT HAPPENED, IF IT HAPPENED. To Ailinn's guardian, Esme Nussbaum, Ailinn and Kevern are fragile shoots of hopefulness. As this unusual pair's actions draw them into ever-increasing danger, Esme is determined to keep them together — whatever the cost.
In this stunning, evocative, and terribly heartbreaking work, where one couple's love affair could have shattering consequences for the human race, Howard Jacobson gathers his prodigious gifts for the crowning achievement of a remarkable career.
Review
“Longlisted for 2014’s Man Booker Prize, J is a snarling, effervescent, and ambitious philosophical work of fiction that poses unsettling questions about our sense of history, and our self-satisfied orthodoxies. Jacobson’s triumph is to craft a novel that is poignant as well as troubling from the debris.” Independent (UK)
Review
“Remarkable....Comparisons do not do full justice to Jacobson’s achievement in what may well come to be seen as the dystopian British novel of its times.” John Burnside, Guardian
Review
“J is a dystopia that invites comparison with George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.” Sunday Times
Review
“Mystifying, serious, and blackly funny... J shows that, for a writer working at the peak of his powers, with the themes of his imagined future very much part of our present, laughter in the dark is the only kind.” Independent on Sunday
Review
“[J]’s success owes much to the fine texture of its dystopia....Jacobson has crafted an immersive, complex experience with care and guile.” Observer
Review
“Contemporary literature is overloaded with millenarian visions of destroyed landscapes and societies in flames, but Jacobson has produced one that feels frighteningly new by turning the focus within: the ruins here are the ruins of language, imagination, love itself.” Telegraph
Synopsis
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this profound, exquisitely written novel brings to life a future where collective memory has vanished — and where one young couple’s love affair could have shattering consequences for the human race.
Set in a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited, J is a boldly inventive love story, both tender and terrifying. Kevern Cohen doesn’t know why his father always drew two fingers across his lips when he said a word starting with a J. It wasn’t then, and isn’t now, the time or place to be asking questions. When the extravagantly beautiful Ailinn Solomons arrives in his village by a sea that laps no other shore, Kevern is instantly drawn to her. Although mistrustful by nature, the two become linked as if they were meant for one another. Together, they form a refuge from the commonplace brutality that is the legacy of a historic catastrophe shrouded in suspicion, denial, and apology, simply referred to as What Happened, If It Happened. To Ailinn’s guardian, Esme Nussbaum, Ailinn and Kevern are fragile shoots of hopefulness. As this unusual pair’s actions draw them into ever-increasing danger, Esme is determined to keep them together — whatever the cost.
In this stunning, evocative, and terribly heartbreaking work, Jacobson gathers his prodigious gifts for the crowning achievement of a remarkable career. Howard Jacobson’s J is an astonishing feat of fiction.
About the Author
An author of fiction and non-fiction, Jacobson's previous novels include Man Booker-winner The Finkler Question, Zoo Time, and Kalooki Nights. Hogarth will also publish his forthcoming retelling of The Merchant of Venice as part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. Jacobson is a columnist for The Independent and has worked as a professor and in television and radio broadcasting.