Howard Jacobson - The Act of Love

Praise forThe Act of Love

[A] fascinating sneak into loves darkest alleys Jacobsons beautiful, rhythmic writing promises a kind of dank eroticism Enormously funny A gem of technical sophistication To Jacobson, love is complicated, funny, cruel, sick and always worth ones while. Much like this wickedly terrific book.

The Globe and Mail

Twisted and acrobatically impressive TheAct ofLove is both gorgeously and monstrously internal. To read it is to take a trip with someone so lucidly demented that you lose your bearings.

The New York Times

It is an almost frighteningly brilliant achievement. Why did the Booker judges not recognise it?

The Guardian

The dialogue crackles like a wood fire. Jacobsons unique prose style combines the Augustan balance of 18th-century Enlightenment writing with Nabokovian conceit and elegant modern aphorisms The Act ofLove is a startling achievement: shocking, argumentative, funny, rude, querulous, intellectually bracing.

The Independent

One of the authors most affecting, honest and brilliant works. It is a searingly well written piece by a ridiculously underrated novelist.

The Sunday Telegraph

A hell of a book Intense and powerful, surprisingly funny, totally affecting, and disturbing. It stays with you afterwards, it makes you think differently about men in general and your partner in particular; it makes you reassess the undercurrents of your relationship. It makes you wonder.

Observer Woman

Exquisitely written, with sentences that coil slowly to reveal their full nature There is much wisdom to be found in The Act of Love and Jacobson is a keen, ruthless observer of human behaviour.

Edmonton Journal

The Act of Love pushes out boundaries and escorts uscomplicit voyeurs, like all consumers of artinto places we would rather not go With eyes wide open he holds a mirror to the darkest aspects of the soul and suggests that instead of turning away we question our subservience to ancient, savage gods.

The Times

Exquisitely shocking and beautifully rendered.

St. Petersburg Times (Tampa Bay, Florida)

Entertaining as well as erudite, [The Act of Love] prompts reflections upon art, obsession, masculinity, betrayal and the nature of the erotic There surely cannot be a more vigorously intelligent novelist than Howard Jacobson writing in this country today.

The Sunday Telegraph

A robust novelpreposterous, disturbing and dazzlingly written.

Kirkus Reviews

Antiquarian bookseller Felix Quinn is sophisticated, intelligent, and a proper English gentleman in all ways but one: he longs to see his wife, Marisa, in the arms of another man Jacobson conjures a twisted yet sophisticated love story here, walking a thin line between humor and erotica and often blending the two.

Booklist

An impressively sustained, and unusually intense, literary experiment.

Literary Review

Jacobson is the closest we in Britain have to Philip Roth Jacobson injects a kind of molten energy into English that makes it move like another language altogether Obsession, hidden desires and the salacious thrill of voyeurism all play their part in this brawny tale of loves flagellant.

Daily Mail (UK)

A master of the comedy of social awkwardness Jacobson is playing a sophisticated literary game, in this most literate of novels.

Esquire

Mesmerising Delightfully funny [Jacobson] revels in language and in the perverse spell it can cast The Act of Love is spellbinding, not just in its characterisation, or in its simplicity of plot, in the flirtatiousness with which Jacobson courts language, or the stylish sardonic humour that seems to come so easily, but in its entirety.

The Scotsman

A rumbustious account of sexual obsession Jacobson [is] a witty and ribald chronicler of the human heart.

Tatler

Its great to see a writer hitting his stride like this Jacobson has done a terrific job. I was trying to work out what had impressed me mostand theres a lot of great stuff. But I think the best thing is Jacobsons sheer mental energythe concentration, the intensity of thought.

The Evening Standard

Contains a rich vein of humour Intelligent and erudite, Felix [the protagonist] is a fascinating character.

Financial Times

Naughtily erudite Jacobson explores the nature of the erotic with a wicked twist [The protagonists] narration is disconcertingly mannered, hes remarkably honest and blisteringly funny, while Jacobsons prose is sharp as ever, loaded with spiky dialogue and wonderfully arch observations.

Publishers Weekly

In the very beginning of this rich and riveting novel, Felix Quinn defines his kind of love He makes his case well. Bright and beautiful sparks fly off him.

The Boston Globe

Jacobson is carving out a niche as the chronicler par excellence of warped, obsessive behavior Felixs narrative of love and loss is not only twisted but also witty, and the novel is not only literary but also literateits peppered with writerly allusions from Herodotus to James Joyce, artistic allusions from Fragonard to Lawrence, and musical allusions from Schubert to the tango.

Library Journal

Praise forKalooki Nights

How is one to convey news of the arrival of a work of genius? This powerful, troubling, moving, profound novel is nothing less What really steals ones breath away is its sharpness and depth of insight and the remorseless tragedy it unfolds, even as it makes one laugh aloud, sometimes in shock The most intelligent and important novel to appear in this country in years.

The Times (UK)

Jacobson is quite simply a master of comic precision. He writes like a dream, with a complete mastery of technique He can have you in stitches either with a long, beautifully timed paragraph or with a mere two words

Evening Standard

The raging, contentious, hilarious, holy, deicidal, heartbreaking KalookiNights is a novel that stands toe-to-toe with the greats.

Sunday Telegraph

This is a welcome return to the bittersweet Yiddish-inspired humour at which Jacobson excels, and which has rightly earned him comparisons with Philip Roth a gloriously pugnacious novel which, not unlike the fiction of Kingsley Amis in his pomp, wants to take on all-comers.

The Guardian

The funniest book published this year.

Observer

Jacobsons masterpiece. The writing is flawless, with the authors trademark blending of tragedy and comedy. A ferocious intelligence courses through it, reminiscent of Philip Roth at his Counterlife best.

Jewish Chronicle

PENGUIN CANADA

THE ACT OF LOVE

HOWARD JACOBSON is the author of ten novels, including KalookiNights (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), The Making of Henry, The Mighty Walzer (winner of the 1999 EverymanWodehouse Award for comic writing), Whos Sorry Now? and several works of non-fiction. He lives in London.

ALSO BY HOWARD JACOBSON

Fiction

Coming from Behind
Peeping Tom
Redback
The Very Model of a Man
No More Mister Nice Guy
The Mighty Walzer
Whos Sorry Now?
The Making of Henry
Kalooki Nights

Non-fiction

Shakespeares Magnanimity (with Wilbur Sanders)
In the Land of Oz
Roots Schmoots
Seriously Funny: An Argument for Comedy

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group