Howl

Reviews / Votes

A howling comic masterpiece -- Patrick Marber Bold and brilliant, Howl is Howard Jacobson at his finest. A challenging novel that demands to be read and talked about -- Anthony Seldon Howard Jacobson's Howl is fearless, furious and unbearably tender - a darkly comic reckoning with history, identity and what it means to stay sane when the world is coming apart. It's a rare novel that feels absolutely of this moment and is also destined to stand the test of time. -- Noreena Hertz Historians can tell you why antisemitism happens, but it takes a great novelist to tease out all the ways it makes Jews feel, about the world and about themselves. Howard Jacobson has a unique eye for the combination of pain and absurdity that this ancient hatred brings to bear on Jewish sensibilities, and an irresistible, shocking wit in its telling. -- Dave Rich Howard Jacobson's appetite for fiction is insatiable. He just gets better and better -- Giles Coren Howl set me off reading instantly, gratefully, excitedly, elatedly, non-stop, in awe of its stealing-up-on-you steely wit, its wild ingenuity, its no-stone-unturned command, its devious turnings-out and turnings-up. Yet another bombshell novel - no one writing in English can match Howard Jacobson. He goes where daredevils fear to tread -- Cynthia Ozick Incredibly profound, beautifully written and - amazingly and essentially - funny -- Tanya Gold Howl is funny and upsetting and profound. Howard Jacobson is the master chronicler of the Jewish experience at a time when it is needed most. -- Matthew Syed In his trademark dazzling prose, Jacobson has written what may be the first post-October 7 novel: by turns angry, rueful, provocative and wise, Howl also somehow - and against all the odds - manages to be consistently, defiantly funny. It is a book that boils with fury and fizzes with life -- Jonathan Freedland Once again Jacobson proves himself one of the great living stylists, a writer who can mine more jagged little truths from a handful of sentences than many of his peers manage in an entire book * Daily Telegraph *