Zoo Time

　　布克獎得主Howard Jacobson以玩世不恭的幽默詮釋情慾與寫作

　　小說家Guy Ableman的丈母娘Poppy駐顏有術，和女兒Vanessa走在一起不像母女，反而像是一對人人稱羨的漂亮姊妹花。Guy深愛著美麗的紅髮妻子Vanessa無法自拔，也同時對美豔的丈母娘Poppy萌生好感。

　　心繫身邊兩位絕世美女的Guy寫作進度嚴重停滯。不過，他面臨到更大的威脅是作品找不到讀者，因為這世界上似乎已經沒有人在讀書了！所有的出版社面臨倒閉，書店一間接著一間關門大吉，每個人都不讀書，卻都癡心妄想要寫出人類歷史上的最後一本書。

　　此時，Guy異想天開地認為應該要和岳母來一段不倫之戀！一方面可以滿足他壓抑已久的慾望，另一方面可以刺激他寫小說的靈感……，他有機會翻盤成功嗎？（文/博客來編譯）

　　Novelist Guy Ableman is in thrall to his vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and blazingly angry. The trouble is, he is no less in thrall to her alluring mother, Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence that destroys Guy’s peace of mind, suggesting the wildest stories but making it impossible for him to concentrate long enough to write any of them. Not that anyone reads Guy, anyway. Not that anyone is reading anything. Reading, Guy fears, is finished. His publisher, fearing the same, has committed suicide. His agent, like all agents, is in hiding. Vanessa, in the meantime, is writing a novel of her own. Guy doesn’t expect her to finish it, or even start it, but he dreads the consequences if she does. In flight from personal disappointment and universal despair, Guy wonders if it’s time to take his love for Poppy to another level. Fiction might be dead, but desire isn’t. And out of that desire he imagines squeezing one more great book. By turns angry, elegiac and rude, Zoo Time is a novel about love - love of women, love of literature, love of laughter. It shows our funniest writer at his brilliant best.

作者簡介

　　An award-winning writer and broadcaster, Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, brought up in Prestwich and was educated at Stand Grammar School in Whitefield, and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied under F. R. Leavis. He lectured for three years at the University of Sydney before returning to teach at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Kalooki Nights (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), the highly acclaimed The Act of Love and, most recently, the Man Booker Prize-winning, The Finkler Question. Howard Jacobson lives in Soho, London.