T&L: Shylock is My Name

Description

A re-envisaging of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, from the Man Booker Prize-winner and our great chronicler of Jewish life.

‘Who is this guy, Dad? What is he doing here?’

With an absent wife and a daughter going off the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is in need of someone to talk to. So when he meets Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, he invites him back to his house. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship …

‘Jacobson is quite simply a master of comic precision. He writes like a dream’ Evening Standard

‘The funniest British novelist since Kingsley Amis or Tom Sharpe’ Mail on Sunday

Publisher Review

Shylock is My Name has much to tell us about loss, identity and modern antisemitism ... Simon's debates with Shylock, snapshots of a man haranguing his literary Creator, are the heart of this book, knowing and humane -- Kate Maltby * The Times * Howard Jacobson's reworking of The Merchant of Venice is a sly success... Irascible, eloquent Shylock is a man transplanted from the play to today. -- Tim Martin * Daily Telegraph * A brilliant conceit... A powerful reimagining and reinvention of Shakespeare's character. -- Adam Lively * The Sunday Times * Jacobson's writing is virtuoso. He is the master of shifting tones, from the satirical to the serious. His prose has the sort of elastic precision you only get from a writer who is truly in command ... There's also deep and sincere soul-searching going on here -- Lucasta Miller * Independent * Inspired...It does what any good literary subversion should do: deepens and enhances one's appreciation of the original. -- James Lasdun * Guardian *