Mother’s Boy

About the book

'One of the all-time great memoirs' Daily Telegraph
'Wonderful...candid, shrewd and moving' William Boyd
'Laugh-out-loud glorious and uproarious' Simon Schama

Howard Jacobson's funny, revealing and tender memoir of his path to becoming a writer.

Howard Jacobson was forty when his first novel was published. In Mother's Boy, he traces the life that brought him there. Born into a working-class Jewish family in 1940s Manchester, he did not lack encouragement or subject matter. Jacobson takes us from childhood and studying at Cambridge, through landing in Sydney as a maverick young professor, and on to his first marriage and the birth of his son. Later, he begins new - and often surprising - ventures in places as disparate as London, Wolverhampton, Boscastle and Melbourne.

Infused with bittersweet memories of Jacobson's parents and friends, this is the story of a writer's beginnings, and of learning to understand who you are before you can become the writer you were meant to be.

'Hilariously brilliant' David Baddiel

'Howard Jacobson brilliantly transforms calamity into rip-roaring comedy' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday