St Urbain's Horseman

Mordecai Richler

From Shelf: The Booker Prize 1971 Shortlist

An early novel by the Canadian author of "Solomon Gursky Was Here", winner of the Commonwealth Prize and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. A Jewish Canadian living in London falls prey to a seedy little accountant and finds himself at the Old Bailey, on trial for a generation consumed with guilt.

"What a rich pleasure this novel is... Its satire is deft and delightful- the trendy London world, failed middle-aged marriages, Jewish family ritual, the whimsical workings of the law, hustlers in business and communications, and Jewish mother at whom even Sophie Portnoy might cringe - all are depicted devastatingly, yet engagingly. The stuff of life, the joy and terror alike, surges through St. Urbain's Horseman" New York Times Long considered one of Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler's most beloved and acclaimed novels, St. Urbain's Horseman is a complex, moving, and wonderfully comic evocation of a generation consumed with guilt, set in 1960s London and Montreal. Thirty-seven-year-old Jake Hersh is a film director of modest success, a faithful husband, and a man in disgrace. His alter ego is his cousin Joey, a legend in their childhood neighbourhood in Montreal. Nazi-hunter, adventurer, and hero of the Spanish Civil War, Joey is the avenging horseman of Jake's impotent dreams. When Jake becomes embroiled in a scandalous trial in London, he puts his own unadventurous life on trial as well, finding it desperately wanting as he steadfastly longs for the Horseman's glorious return. Irreverent, deeply felt, as scathing in its critique of social mores as it is uproariously funny, St. Urbain's Horseman was the book that confirmed Mordecai Richler's reputation as a pre-eminent observer of the hypocrisies and absurdities of modern life.

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