Howard Jacobson - Kalooki Nights

Praise forKalooki Nights

Jacobsons prose is pure pleasureconcise, markedly insightful, sometimes laugh-out-loud funnyand his message, ultimately, is a heartbreaker. An exceptional novel.Booklist

A brilliant, raucous, ribald romp through the world of contemporary Britain, as seen by a dyspeptic, thrice-married Jewish cartoonist. Not many novelists can induce me to laugh out loud. Jacobson can.The Globe and Mail

How is one to convey news of the arrival of a work of genius? This powerful, troubling, moving, profound novel is nothing less. Its architecturemore accurately: its engineering, the construction of itis a feat of brilliance. [Yet] what really steals one s breath away is its sharpness and depth of insighta sharpness that flays, and a depth almost too vertiginous to describe. It is the most intelligent and important novel to appear in this country in years It is, to repeat and to repeat plainly, a work of genius.The Times

Kalooki Nights is a disturbingly comic airing of what Maxs family would consider the Jews dirty laundry Jacobson tests the limits of good taste every bit as energetically as Max does. It moves almost effortlessly from crude humour to dead seriousness Kalooki Nights begs to be read. Winnipeg Free Press

In Kalooki Nights [Jacobson] has taken his skills to a new level and produced a novel of genius. To do critical justice to it would require a review many times longer than the work itself Behind the dust-sheets Jacobson is presiding, with absolute authority and control, over the construction of a masterpiece. The Independent

The raging, contentious, hilarious, holy, deicidal, heartbreaking Kalooki Nights is a novel that stands toe-to-toe with the greats. A brilliant and combative humour is at the heart of this extraordinarily audacious look at Jewishness The readerentertained, exhausted and ennobledwill finish this colossal work of art in remembrance and sorrow.The Sunday Telegraph

This is turbo-charged; someone has put a rocket under Jacobson, and the result is scintillating Jacobson is quite simply a master of comic precision. He writes like a dream, with complete mastery of technique The book isnt really just about being Jewish at all. Its about being human.Evening Standard

Howard Jacobson is incapable of writing a predictable sentence. It is likely to be the funniest book published this year [His] prose [is] sharper and brighter than any of his contemporaries.The Observer

A masterpiece a brilliantly constructed, playful, evocative, hilarious, midnight dark novel.Sunday Herald

A welcome return to the bittersweet Yiddish-inspired humour at which Jacobson excels a gloriously pugnacious novel.The Guardian

Howard Jacobsons tour de force You dont have to be Jewish to love this book, just human.The Guardian (London and Manchester)

A ferocious intelligence courses through it, reminiscent of Philip Roth at his best.Jewish Chronicle

The most brilliantly ambitious (and ambitiously brilliant) of his eight novels If this one does not make a shortlist or two, it will be a cruel joke indeed. New Statesman

Not many novelists would dare to tackle such a difficult subject at any point in their career. Kalooki Nights marks Jacobson out as one of the few writers who have been brave enough to tryand as one of the even fewer number who have done so successfully.The North West Enquirer

A scorching disquisition on (British) Jewish identity, spun from an unspeakable criminal act Jacobsons account of a life of jokes, Jews, bitterness, and whys is clever, celebratory, condemnatory, excessive, overwhelming and unique. Kirkus Reviews

Rich, colorful characters.Entertainment Weekly

PENGUIN CANADA

KALOOKI NIGHTS

HOWARD JACOBSON lives in London and is the author of ten novels and four works of non-fiction. Kalooki Nights was longlisted for the Man Booker prize. Jacobson won the Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing in 1999 for The Mighty Walzer. TheAct of Love is his most recent work.

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

The Act of Love

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

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0745, Auckland, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, an imprint of Random House,
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA, 2006
Published in Canada by Penguin Group (Canada),
a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2007
published in this edition, 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright Howard Jacobson, 2006

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publishers note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

ISBN: 978-0-14-317089-1

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication data available upon request to the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication data available.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see
www.penguin.ca/corporatesales or call 1-800-810-3104, ext. 477 or 474

To Ian MacKillop
1939 2004
Incomparable Teacher and Friend

I knew a fellow named Otto Kahn, who was a very rich man, and he gave a lot of money to the Metropolitan Opera House at one time. His close friend was Marshall P. Wilder, who was a hunchback. And they were walking down Fifth Avenue, and they came to a synagogue, and Kahn turned to Wilder and said, You know I used to be a Jew. Really? said Wilder. I used to be a hunchback.