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I'm Jack

I'm Jack

by Mark Blacklock (Author)

  • Used

    Paperback 2016

    $3.65

  • New

    Paperback 2016

    $10.79
Synopsis

In this provocative novel Mark Blacklock portrays the true and complex history of John Humble, aka Wearside Jack, the Ripper Hoaxer, a timewaster and criminal, sympathetic and revolting, the man hidden by a wall of words, a fiction-spinner worthy of textual analysis. In this remarkable work, John Humble leads the reader into an allusive, elusive labyrinth of interpretations, simultaneously hoodwinking and revealing. I'm Jack is a riveting novel about truth, lies, prison and shame. It is also a profound and furious love letter to Sunderland. It is a puzzle, a hoax, a multi-voice portrait and a virtuoso assemblage of textual elements. I'm Jack announces the arrival of a radically talented and innovative novelist.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 272
 Publisher: Granta Books
Published: 02 Jun 2016
ISBN 10: 178378086X
ISBN 13: 9781783780860
Book Overview: A bold and original novel about John Humble, the Yorkshire Ripper hoaxer

Media Reviews
A gripping study in self-invention - and, ultimately, self-erasure - Tom McCarthyHere are dark telegrams from an expertly realised otherness that is Sunderland. Spare. Swift. Smart. And dangerous. Carrying us through maps of shame to rescue a convincing fiction of the past from its sullen entropy - Iain SinclairThe varied range and wit of his polyphonic chorus are reminiscent of Joe Orton's darkly subversive correspondence pranks... [An] intelligent [and] disturbing slice of noir - Catherine Taylor, GuardianAn audacious exercise in mimicry... Its tone is mischievous, with a vein of dark, crafty humour - though the overall effect is sombre. Blacklock's Humble is impossible to like; yet by the end it is almost impossible not to feel sorry for him - Austin Collings, Financial TimesLess a novel and more an assault on the senses, I'm Jack cleverly uses inter-textual trickery and deft Mackem parlance to create a portrait of a man obsessed. It is a forensic montage, a frenzied confessional and a stark commentary on the effects of public notoriety. Moving, haunted and necessary - Benjamin Myers, author, Pig IronCompelling, troubling, fascinating, a delight to read. It is a sublime anti-novel and a brilliantly original intervention into a most peculiar episode of recent history - James Miller, author, Lost BoysAbsorbing and fascinating. Using multi-layered storytelling, a deep personal knowledge of Sunderland past, present and legend in a believable and hard-hitting blend of fact and imagination, it paints a genuinely disturbing vision of an obsessive, calculating and ultimately self-destructive personality - Bryan Talbot, author, Dotter of Her Father's EyesA deftly executed ventriloquist act, it's anchored in the true story of notorious hoaxer John Humble... The book itself is just as slippery - Hephzibah Anderson, Observer[An] intriguing debut... There is an air of grubby menace throughout - Ben Myers, New StatesmanThe ageing Humble is a figure lost on the margins of society: alcoholic, in and out of gaol and lacking any real relationship... [Suggesting] that crime might be understood by looking at the particular social situations that contribute to it, Blacklock presents Humble as far from 'evil' but a melancholic echo of a wider deprivation - Jerome de Groot, History Today
Author Bio
MARK BLACKLOCK has a doctorate in 4th Dimensionality and lives in London.