The Mighty Walzer by Howard Jacobson
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 won the Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing when it was published in 1999.
Howard Jacobson won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse award in 2000 for The Mighty Walzer and then again in 2013 for Zoo Time. In 2010 he won the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question and was also shortlisted for the prize in 2013 for his most recent novel, J. He has written fourteen novels and five works of non-fiction.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780224051576 |
| ISBN 10 | 0224051571 |
| Title | The Mighty Walzer |
| Author | Howard Jacobson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 1999-08-26 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Prizes | Winner of HH Wingate/Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize 2000, Short-listed for WH Smith Literary Prize 2000, Short-listed for WH Smith Annual Literary Award 2000 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |