Howl

A pitch-black novel of obsession and pain about a headmaster grappling with world events and existential despair

In the aftermath of a massacre from which he doubts the world will ever recover, Ferdinand Draxler finds himself at the crossroads of history. Unless it's just a bend in the cul-de-sac of his own gloomy nature.

The son of a Holocaust survivor who accuses him of cowardice and the father of a daughter who accuses him of genocide, Draxler longs to be a hero for his people or the comic scourge of their enemies, but does he have the mettle to be either? He isn't even sure he has what it takes to go mad.

He wades through protests and searches London for menacing graffiti, whilst dodging the warring staff in the primary school where he is headmaster and the pleas of his non-Jewish wife to seek 'mental health' support. But can't she see that the world is crumbling around them, and he is at the centre?

A devastating psychological portrait filled with wit, dark humour and tragedy, Howl is the propulsive new novel from Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson.