Mother's Boy : A Writer's Beginnings

''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