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J: A Novel

Howard Jacobson author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:6th Aug '15

Should be back in stock very soon

J: A Novel cover

A life-changing novel by one of Britain's greatest novelists, winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2010

Two people fall in love, not yet knowing where they have come from or where they are going. They aren't sure if they have fallen in love of their own accord, or whether they've been pushed into each other's arms. But who would have pushed them, and why?

A thought-provoking prescient novel from the Booker-prize winning author of The Finkler Question.

‘Remarkable…May well come to be seen as the dystopian British novel of its times’ Guardian


Two people fall in love, not yet knowing where they have come from or where they are going.

They aren’t sure if they have fallen in love of their own accord, or whether they’ve been pushed into each other’s arms. But who would have pushed them, and why?

Hanging over their lives is a momentous catastrophe – a past event shrouded in suspicion, denial and apology, now referred to as What Happened, If It Happened.

Set in the future – a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited – J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying.

Shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize, the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize and Longlisted for the JQ Wingate Literary Prize.

A mighty novel. * Observer *
Remarkable… May well come to be seen as the dystopian British novel of its times * Guardian *
Thrilling and enigmatic * New York Times Book Review *
Snarling, effervescent and ambitious… Jacobson’s triumph is to craft a novel that is poignant as well as troubling * Independent *
Jacobson…goes from strength to strength. -- William Leith * Evening Standard *
Very little about Jacobson’s circuitous romance-cum-murder mystery is straightforward – other than its originality and its devastating brilliance. -- Stephanie Cross * Daily Mail *
A dystopia that invites comparison with George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World * Sunday Times *
Mystifying, serious and blackly funny. -- Max Liu * Independent on Sunday *

  • Short-listed for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2014 (UK)
  • Short-listed for The Goldsmiths Prize 2014 (UK)
  • Short-listed for Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize 2016 (UK)
  • Long-listed for The Folio Prize 2015 (UK)

ISBN: 9780099598381

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 20mm

Weight: 234g

336 pages