Howard Jacobson
James Naughtie talks to Howard Jacobson about his comic novel The Mighty Walzer.
Bookclub · BBC Radio 4
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Show Notes
James Naughtie and readers talk to this year's Man Booker prize winner - Howard Jacobson. The chosen book for this edition of Bookclub is the one he says he wants people to read : The Mighty Walzer, first published in 1999.
Peculiarly, it is a comic novel about the joy and despair of table tennis.
It's also a portrait of a Jewish boyhood in Manchester, showing how the main character - Oliver Walzer - comes to terms with the demands of puberty and his sporting genius; as well as the attentions of his mother, grandmother and assorted aunties.
Back in the 1950s Jacobson, like his alter-ego Oliver Walzer, was one of the top 10 junior table tennis players in the country. This is a heavily autobiographical novel from a writer who's has been called 'the master of confessional humour'.
As always on Bookclub, a group of readers join the author in the discussion and James Naughtie chairs the programme.
February's Bookclub choice : 'Blood River' by Tim Butcher.
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.