The Mighty Walzer
A comic novel of table tennis and adolescence in 1950s Manchester.
Oliver Walzer is a shy, filthy-minded adolescent in 1950s Manchester who turns out to be very good at ping-pong, played in a basement on a table where the ball keeps disappearing behind stacked chairs. Jacobson won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for it, and it is the novel of his most often called autobiographical.
Recommended by 1 Person
Matthew Syed
He has an ability to articulate the psychology of sport even at an amateur level. Even when it is being played at the local Allied Jam and Marmalade factory on a table in the basement where the ball keeps going behind stacked-up chairs or falling behind the stage. It was very evocative of my learning to play table tennis, and Jacobson has a rare genius for encapsulating the sociology of the thing.
Interview · December 2010
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