The Mighty Walzer

By: Howard Jacobson

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Paperback | 6 April 2000 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
400 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
19.7 x 13.1 x 2.5

Paperback

$32.75

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"The most dangerously funny writer in the English language." - "Sunday Times"

From the very beginning, Oliver Walzer is a natural - at ping-pong. Without even a bat (he plays with the Collins Classic edition of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) he can chop, flick, half-volley like a champion. At sex, he is not a natural, being shy and frightened of women, but with tuition from Sheeny Waxman, fellow member of the Akiva Social Club Table Tennis team and stalwart of the Kardoma coffee bar, his game improves.

Twink, Aishky, Sheeny, Louis: the Akiva boys teach Walzer everything there is to know about ping-pong, at least as it is played in the Manchester and District League. His father, Joel Walzer, market trader, teaches him everything there is to know about 'swag': Dutch pee-pee boys with Chinese faces, flowery wall plates, pouffes shaped like grand pianos. Unabashedly autobiographical, this story of one man's coming of age in the Manchester of the 1950s is hilarious and heartbreaking. It is Howard Jacobson's masterpiece.

It won the Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing when it was published in 1999.

Industry Reviews

"Jacobson is a great storyteller: phrases, anecdotes and atmosphere roll off the page with the ease and sublime, scary grace of drunken eels...he is unsurpassable" * The Times * "This mature novel has the sustained exuberance and passion of his youthful writing...an achingly funny book...an amazing acheivement... There are few novelists today who can imbue the trifles of life with such poetry" * Independent * "Marvellous. Jacobson has not just written the first great novel about ping-pong. He has written one of the greatest sporting novels ever...a towering work of authority" * Sunday Telegraph * "Jacobson's humour is unashamedly savage and his jokes as sharp as a switch-blade...comic vitriol worthy of Evelyn Waugh" * Sunday Express *

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