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Review
`Jackson's widow, with her tart observations about life and men, is great company. Like a glass of spicy red wine, this is a book to swig back and enjoy.' --Daily Mail
`Likeable, believable and often funny ... the book is about coping with the everyday rather than the miraculous. Perhaps it is all the braver for it.' --Daily Telegraph
'A wonderfully observant character portrait that veers between the side-splitting and the heartbreaking.' --Sunday Times
`Likeable, believable and often funny ... the book is about coping with the everyday rather than the miraculous. Perhaps it is all the braver for it.' --Daily Telegraph
'A wonderfully observant character portrait that veers between the side-splitting and the heartbreaking.' --Sunday Times
Book Description
The long awaited third novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of Five Boys and The Underground Man
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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Mick Jackson's narrator is defiant if understandably shaky in the face of the sudden death of her husband. Her flight to Norfork is cloaked in confusion, and a certain amount of alcohol will be consumed to numb the immediate pain, but information leaks out bit by bit as to why she might have made the curious journey. The reader pities her bereavement, but admires her spiky wit. One suspects that the real reasons for her escape to the country are deeply sad, but how much is our anti-heroine prepared to reveal?
I love the woman's voice; stoic, satirical with very little self-pity. This is a highly original and often funny novel, in which one life's mundanities are described in a refreshingly colourfull style. The reader can return to this story and believe in the woman's situation, all the peculiar and destabilising tricks grief plays on anyone, and nod in agreement. You can read and understand, without falling into depression; an achievement for any writer! A terrific story.
I love the woman's voice; stoic, satirical with very little self-pity. This is a highly original and often funny novel, in which one life's mundanities are described in a refreshingly colourfull style. The reader can return to this story and believe in the woman's situation, all the peculiar and destabilising tricks grief plays on anyone, and nod in agreement. You can read and understand, without falling into depression; an achievement for any writer! A terrific story.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
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There's a charmingly mad woman at the heart of Mick Jackson's latest foray into the perils of the human mind. And much like his first novel, the Underground Man, we see a return to form and a method in madness after the inconsistent and muddled attempt at populist nostalgia in Five Boys.
What makes Jackson so special and The Widow's Tale such a rewarding and entertaining read, is his light touch to the weighty topic of grief. It's truly enough to make you laugh out loud at some brilliant comic observations resting on a thin film over deep depths of despair. Even if Jackson can't quite walk on water as a classic novelist just yet, his treatment of this topic is a fair comparison all the same. It's quite a trick as we trip along with our widow on her random adventures around the Norfolk coast and wistful past life memories.
Jackson intends to drag you in, and along, for the ride. It's a minute examination of a lady without a name and the frequent clever references to places Jackson assumes we know, " ...and ate at that Italian place in the corner of the open market". Enough to make one do a double take: do I know that place? And indeed do I know this lady? Save for the geography, of course we do, it's about all of us in one way or another.
Here's a book that for once is just a pure pleasure. It's straightforward and desperately honest, funny and heart warming. Such is Jackson's manipulation of our empathy, just maybe come the novel's end you might also want to jump in the car and go join our heroine rather than have to leave her life in the cottage. A masterstroke in the art of loss made real.
What makes Jackson so special and The Widow's Tale such a rewarding and entertaining read, is his light touch to the weighty topic of grief. It's truly enough to make you laugh out loud at some brilliant comic observations resting on a thin film over deep depths of despair. Even if Jackson can't quite walk on water as a classic novelist just yet, his treatment of this topic is a fair comparison all the same. It's quite a trick as we trip along with our widow on her random adventures around the Norfolk coast and wistful past life memories.
Jackson intends to drag you in, and along, for the ride. It's a minute examination of a lady without a name and the frequent clever references to places Jackson assumes we know, " ...and ate at that Italian place in the corner of the open market". Enough to make one do a double take: do I know that place? And indeed do I know this lady? Save for the geography, of course we do, it's about all of us in one way or another.
Here's a book that for once is just a pure pleasure. It's straightforward and desperately honest, funny and heart warming. Such is Jackson's manipulation of our empathy, just maybe come the novel's end you might also want to jump in the car and go join our heroine rather than have to leave her life in the cottage. A masterstroke in the art of loss made real.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
What sounds at first glance a rather depressing subject turns out to be anything but in this funny novel by Mick Jackson.
The lows that John's widow experiences, are cleverly ofset by the hilarious adventures she has when holed up in an holiday cottage in East Anglia.
The description of her feelings of pain, anger and desolation at her husbands death are uncomfortable reading but more than ofset by the humour which is verging on the almost farcical at times of her day to day survival.
A very cleverly written novel, well worth reading.
The lows that John's widow experiences, are cleverly ofset by the hilarious adventures she has when holed up in an holiday cottage in East Anglia.
The description of her feelings of pain, anger and desolation at her husbands death are uncomfortable reading but more than ofset by the humour which is verging on the almost farcical at times of her day to day survival.
A very cleverly written novel, well worth reading.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Insightful piece of writing:
This story captures perfectly the wilderness of the aftermath following a close death.
However, as a novel this wilderness is a bit tedious. Read more
However, as a novel this wilderness is a bit tedious. Read more
Published 8 months ago by A Liverpool Reader
A widow's feelings as seen through a man's eyes
This book was chosen as last month's book club reading and started off with great promise, a widow's mixed feelings of loss, happiness and guilt as seen through a man's eyes, but... Read more
Published 10 months ago by DorsetGirl_11
like a man writing about a woman
Tried too hard and I suspect forgot that bereaved women seldom use words such as 'donkey dick'.Wish I hadnt bought it.
Published 15 months ago by Jean A. Wright
Well written, not earth shattering, account of a woman at a turning...
Mick Jackson has been much hyped in the very prize-conscious world of today's publishing, and this is a well-written and readable novel about a woman in her early 60s who has lost... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Gareth Smyth
Very readable ...
For a novel about a really difficult time in someone's life, this was really amusing and very readable.
She is a widow. Read more
She is a widow. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Cee-Gee
Gentle but witty read
I absolutely loved this book - I loved the fact that nothing much happens, it made it so much more natural and human. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Princess Mononoke
Not what I expected!
This was not as quirky as the other books I've read by Mick Jackson, like the wonderful "Underground Man" and "Ten Sorry tales", as it was much more personal. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Rob Zeppelin
A slow burner - too slow for me
Perhaps you need to have experienced the loss of a spouse to properly appreciate this novel. It's about a recently widowed woman who escapes to Norfolk to deal with her grief. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Tealady2000
Mick Jackson - A bitter-sweet tale of loss and the perils of white...
The dust jacket of this book points you to the previous works of Mick Jackson and the "astonishing" booker prize nominated "The Underground Man". Read more
Published 23 months ago by Red on Black
The Widows Tale
`The Widows Tale' is an incredible read and a book that I found difficult to put down once I had started. Read more
Published 23 months ago by S. Thomas
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