Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough: ‘highly readable but thoroughly depressing’
Timely analysis of how Britain has helped to launder others’ fortunes
In this “brilliantly funny” and “bittersweet” memoir, the Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson looks back on his tormented early life, said Kathryn Hughes in The Sunday Times. He emerged, he shows, from “irreconcilable elements”: Anita, his Lithuanian-descended mother, was a woman of “apocalyptic pessimism”, while his father Max, whose roots were Ukrainian, had a “bouncier demeanour”.
As the title – Mother’s Boy – suggests, Jacobson was closer to his mother in temperament. “As a teenager he devoured literature, but was hopeless at the things that were meant to make a macher,” – a player, the sort of man of whom his father approved.
After grammar school, he went to Cambridge and studied under the “influential literary critic F.R. Leavis”, who taught “clever young men” to worship Jane Austen, Henry James and other novelists in the Great Tradition. This ushered Jacobson into his first career – as a lecturer in English at Wolverhampton Polytechnic – but had a “deleterious effect” on his own writing ambitions. “Since I couldn’t be Dickens,” he recalls, “I couldn’t be anybody.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Despite believing that he was “put on Earth to write”, it wasn’t until he was 40 that Jacobson published his first novel, said Frances Wilson in The Spectator. In the meantime, he was deeply unhappy – by his own estimation “a failed husband, a failed father, a failed university lecturer”.
What finally got him over his writer’s block was the realisation that he shouldn’t shrink from his Jewishness; instead, he could embrace it unapologetically in his work – and as a result he “broke new ground”, becoming Britain’s answer to Philip Roth. Both “very funny” and “profoundly serious”, Mother’s Boy is a superb memoir. “If there is a better contemporary account of the cost of becoming a writer I’ve yet to read it.”
Jonathan Cape 288pp £18.99; The Week Bookshop £14.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'Criminal trail?'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Grindr 'shared user HIV status' with ad firms, lawsuit claims
Speed Read LGBTQ dating app accused of breaching UK data protection laws in case filed at London's High Court
By Rebecca Messina, The Week UK Published
-
The best dog-friendly hotels around the UK
The Week Recommends Take a break with your four-legged friend in accommodation that offers you both a warm welcome
By Adrienne Wyper, The Week UK Published
-
Sarah Langan recommends 6 women-centric horror books
Feature The horror novelist recommends works by Stephen King, Gillian Flynn, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 spacious homes for car lovers
Feature Featuring a 14-car showroom in Oregon and a Bentley-style apartment in Florida
By The Week Staff Published
-
6 serene homes in Vermont
Features Featuring a four-level Shaker barn in Hartland and a Scandinavian-inspired home in Stowe
By The Week US Published
-
Amanda Montell's 6 favorite books that will expand your knowledge
Feature The linguist recommends works by Mary Roach, Alice Carrière, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Rowan Beaird recommends 6 compelling books from the 1950s
Feature The author recommends works by Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, and more
By The Week US Published
-
6 spacious homes with great rec rooms
Feature Featuring a suspended fireplace in Arizona and a marine-themed home in Maine
By The Week Published
-
Recipe: gnocchi di spinaci (spinach gnocchi)
The Week Recommends Forget the potatoes for this gnocchi made of the 'classic combination' of spinach and ricotta
By The Week UK Published
-
Stephen Graham Jones' 6 scary books with deeper meanings
Feature The best-selling author recommends works by Stephen King, Sara Gran, and more
By The Week US Published