Howl – Howard Jacobson

Description

A pitch-black novel of obsession and pain about a headmaster grappling with world events and existential despair

A tragicomic portrait of one man’s unravelling in an absurd, twisted world, Howl is the propulsive new novel from Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson.

‘The undisputed British master of black comedies’ Observer

In the aftermath of October 7, Ferdinand Draxler walks the streets of London in despair. Everything has changed – the sights, the sound, the spirit. He too is not who he was. Is he at the crossroads of history or is it just a bend in the cul-de-sac of his own gloomy nature?

The son of a Holocaust survivor who accuses him of cowardice and the father of a daughter who sees him as complicit in genocide, Draxler fixates on bad news. He shouts at the television. He carries his own tin of paint to cover up graffiti. The staffroom at the primary school of which he is headmaster has become a battlefield of inflamed opinion he does nothing to quiet.

His wife Charmian is a beacon of calm but even she isn’t sure she can save Ferdie from himself. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he tells her. ‘I don’t have what it takes to go mad.’