BOOK DETAILS
Trade paper ISBN-13: 978-1941147771 List Price: $17.99 U.S. Pages: 220 Published: 2015 |
Jubb (1963)
Keith Waterhouse With a new introduction by Alice Ferrebe Due to copyright restrictions, this title is only available to U.S. customers.
Book Description
C. L. Jubb is thirty-six, married, gainfully employed, and active in his community, both in local government and as a volunteer youth leader working with disadvantaged boys. But as he narrates the story of his downfall, we begin to see that he is other things as well: a voyeur, a fetishist, a racist, an admirer of Mussolini, and above all, a man obsessed by his sexual fantasies. With its unforgettable protagonist – odious yet pitiable, vile yet oddly sympathetic – Keith Waterhouse’s third novel is both a gripping case study of a social and sexual misfit and an unsettling but wickedly funny social satire. Jubb (1963) was a departure from Waterhouse’s first two novels, the classic story of childhood There is a Happy Land and the comic masterpiece Billy Liar, but like those works it was widely acclaimed by critics, who compared it favorably with Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. This edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by Alice Ferrebe and a reproduction of the original dust jacket art. |
reviews
“Mr. Waterhouse’s feat is doubly admirable in that his central figure, C.L. Jubb, is about as soiled a figure – physically and spiritually – as a reader is likely to come across. Constantly and unsubtly lewd, a Peeping Tom, a fetishist, a collector of vulgar pornography, his escapades are demeaning, his actions unclean, his behavior repellent.... Mr. Waterhouse makes Jubb quite lucid in a deranged sort of way.... indeed a very funny book.” – New York Times
“What makes Jubb an important book and one of the finest in months, is that Waterhouse touches so close to the frightening center of Jubb’s humanness. It is indicative of Waterhouse’s skill that he can maintain humor in the face of the frightening aspect of a man inside-out. It is even more to his credit that he can turn a man inside-out to begin with ... a fascinating novel.” – Cleveland Plain Dealer
“It is not too much to say that the writing in Jubb is magnificent. There is scarcely a single false note, and the blending of the comic, the ridiculous, the pathetic, the human, and even the brave, is an achievement that puts Mr. Waterhouse above all his contemporary novelists.” – Washington D.C. Star
“Pathetic Jubb may be, but Mr. Waterhouse has somehow managed to make him a gloriously comic character.... Mr. Waterhouse’s criticism of our society is no less angry for being very funny, and he has achieved the remarkable feat of writing in the character of a man [who is psychopathic but] who nevertheless emerges as profoundly sane and even, in his own odd way, quite jolly.” – Times Literary Supplement
“Jubb, if this isn’t already immediately apparent, is a brilliantly funny book.... But its best quality is a generosity of imagination which banishes the stock image of the drab little fetishist and substitutes a desperate human being whom at one time or another we have all seen in the mirror.” – The Observer
“The greatest coup since Lolita ... Waterhouse, author of Billy Liar, demonstrates that there is enough erotic provocation in our midst to make voyeurs of us all.” – Saturday Review
“Waterhouse has few equals today for wry humor, laced with sin-and-tonic.” – London Evening News
“What makes Jubb an important book and one of the finest in months, is that Waterhouse touches so close to the frightening center of Jubb’s humanness. It is indicative of Waterhouse’s skill that he can maintain humor in the face of the frightening aspect of a man inside-out. It is even more to his credit that he can turn a man inside-out to begin with ... a fascinating novel.” – Cleveland Plain Dealer
“It is not too much to say that the writing in Jubb is magnificent. There is scarcely a single false note, and the blending of the comic, the ridiculous, the pathetic, the human, and even the brave, is an achievement that puts Mr. Waterhouse above all his contemporary novelists.” – Washington D.C. Star
“Pathetic Jubb may be, but Mr. Waterhouse has somehow managed to make him a gloriously comic character.... Mr. Waterhouse’s criticism of our society is no less angry for being very funny, and he has achieved the remarkable feat of writing in the character of a man [who is psychopathic but] who nevertheless emerges as profoundly sane and even, in his own odd way, quite jolly.” – Times Literary Supplement
“Jubb, if this isn’t already immediately apparent, is a brilliantly funny book.... But its best quality is a generosity of imagination which banishes the stock image of the drab little fetishist and substitutes a desperate human being whom at one time or another we have all seen in the mirror.” – The Observer
“The greatest coup since Lolita ... Waterhouse, author of Billy Liar, demonstrates that there is enough erotic provocation in our midst to make voyeurs of us all.” – Saturday Review
“Waterhouse has few equals today for wry humor, laced with sin-and-tonic.” – London Evening News
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Keith Waterhouse was born in 1929 in Leeds. He left school at 14 and worked as a cobbler’s assistant and then an undertaker’s clerk before getting a job in 1950 as a junior reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post. Waterhouse would remain active in journalism for the rest of his life, but also began a second career, writing fiction in his spare time. His first novel, There is a Happy Land, was published in 1957 and drew on his childhood growing up in poverty on a council estate. His second novel, Billy Liar (1959), was a major success, winning critical acclaim and becoming a bestseller; it is now considered a modern classic. With his friend Willis Hall, Waterhouse adapted Billy Liar for the stage and later wrote the screenplay for a 1963 film adaptation, which many believe is one of the best British films ever made. The novel also inspired a musical, a television series, and a sequel, Billy Liar on the Moon (1975).
Waterhouse continued to collaborate with Willis Hall over the next twenty-five years, writing numerous plays and television scripts, and also wrote plays on his own, including Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, a major success when it opened in 1989 with Peter O’Toole in the starring role.
Waterhouse’s prolific output includes numerous well-received comic novels, including Jubb (1963), Office Life (1978) and Bimbo (1990), as well as two volumes of memoirs, City Lights (1994) and Streets Ahead (1995). He was also very well known for his writings on English language and usage and for his columns in the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail. He was appointed CBE in 1991 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 2009.
Waterhouse continued to collaborate with Willis Hall over the next twenty-five years, writing numerous plays and television scripts, and also wrote plays on his own, including Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, a major success when it opened in 1989 with Peter O’Toole in the starring role.
Waterhouse’s prolific output includes numerous well-received comic novels, including Jubb (1963), Office Life (1978) and Bimbo (1990), as well as two volumes of memoirs, City Lights (1994) and Streets Ahead (1995). He was also very well known for his writings on English language and usage and for his columns in the Daily Mirror and Daily Mail. He was appointed CBE in 1991 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He died in 2009.