Who's Sorry Now

Jacobson is a genius. I read WSN after his recent masterpiece Kalooki Nights. Both novels are the blackest comedies imbued with high purpose. The big puzzle: why are Jacobon's books not widely read in the U.S.?? Anyone else across the pond we don't know about??

Howard Jacobson is a brilliant comic writer just waiting for that breakout novel to catapult him into the ranks of young promising talents who get their first exposure to the reading public on the strength of making the Booker shortlist. Well, "Who's Sorry Now (WSN)" made the longlist a couple of years ago but inexplicably got no further. That's a real shame because WSN should have been that breakout novel. It's hilarious and an out and out winner in the best English tradition of comic writing. Crisply written, hugely funny, razor sharp in its humour, deadly in its comic timing, yet terribly sad in its observation of the state of contemporary life in England. Those with an inherently biased view that comic writing has to be lightweight and frivolous should read WSN and then reconsider. Such is the deceptive modesty and slyness of Jacobson's aim that before each laughter dies on your lips - usually after another of Marvin's or Charlie's pathetic antics - you begin to discern the taste of bile in your mouth. The Kreitmans and Merriweathers are or think they're good friends until the men agree on a spouse swapping experiment to cure one of them of boredom born of envy and fidelity. The contrasting lifestyles and social milieu of the couples soon find the experiment taking them to places they never imagined. Happiness and bliss from their new coupling soon dissipates, and here's when the plot takes a surprising turn. Jacobson's deftness and sureness of touch shines through in the spying sequence that ends on a deliciously jaw dropping note ! The novel winds down dispensing a general sense of poetic justice, though not everyone comes off safely. Some emerge with more than a scratch. The title's message is reserved deservedly for Marvin. WSN isn't all about sex and infidelity. The relevance of the family as a social unit, class-based lifestyles and cultural snobbery all come under Jacobson's cleared-eyed scrutiny. Naturally, the verdict isn't encouraging. WSN isn't funny ha-ha. It's a comic novel with a deep social conscience and that's a rarity.