The writer and broadcaster won the £50,000 award for The Finkler Question despite being the 10/1 rank outsider. He won
with his 11th novel and said he was “truly flabbergasted”. “I was beginning to look like I was the novelist that never, ever won
the Booker Prize,” said Jacobson, 68, who refers to himself as “the Jewish Jane Austen”. “I’m so sick of being described as
'the underrated Howard Jacobson’. So the thought that this judging panel has got rid of that forever is wonderful.
“I’ve waited a long time for this. There has been a little bit of bitterness, I would be a fool to pretend otherwise. But the
bitterness has gone now. I’ve been discovered. I’ve been around for nearly 30 years, but at least they’re discovering me. “My
new novel is about a writer enjoying no success whatsoever. So I’m in a bit of schtuck with that one.
Jacobson has promised to spend the money on a handbag for his wife, Jenny. The whole £50,000? He rolled his eyes.
“Have you seen the price of handbags? It was all very different from a 2001 interview in which Jacobson was quoted as
saying the Booker Prize was “an absolute abomination – the same dreary books year after year”.
Jacobson is the oldest winner since William Golding in 1980 and he beat favourites Tom McCarthy and Emma Donoghue. It
has been a long road to literary glory – a teacher at his Manchester primary school identified him as a future novelist aged
just seven, but Jacobson became a lecturer at Wolverhampton Polytechnic and was 40 before he published his first book.
Although longlisted twice before – for Kalooki Nights in 2006 and Who’s Sorry Now? in 2002 – he has never been
shortlisted before.
Sir Andrew Motion, chairman of the judges, said: “There is a particular pleasure in seeing somebody who is this good finally
getting his just desserts.” The book follows the misadventures of Julian Treslove, a failed BBC producer who is
fiercely jealous of his successful old schoolfriend, Sam Finkler, and yearns to be Jewish like him. It is the first comic novel in
the 42-year history of the prize, but also a meditation on identity, friendship and loss.
“It’s either a very funny book with very sad bits in it, or a very sad book with very funny bits in it,” Sir Andrew said. “It is a
book about Jewishness but it is so much more than that. It is a profound, wise book and a very entertaining one. It would be
a bit over-the-top to say it’s Shakespearean, but he certainly knows something that Shakespeare knew – that the tragic and
the funny are intimately linked.”
It was a narrow win – the judging process came down to a 3-2 decision in favour of Jacobson – but Sir Andrew said The
Finkler Question was “a completely worthy winner”. The prize was presented in a ceremony at London’s Guildhall.
Jacobson can now look forward to a hefty increase in book sales on the back of his win. Janine Cook, fiction buyer for
Waterstone’s, said: “Jacobson may have been low in the odds but there was always a sense that this might be his year. He
is a consistently entertaining writer and this is one of his best.”
There was intrigue last week when Ladbrokes suspended the betting on Tom McCarthy’s C following a flurry of wagers from
within the literary world – £15,000 in the space of one morning. However, Sir Andrew dismissed the conspiracy theories as
“utterly ”.
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