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The Dubious Salvation Of Jack V.
The Dubious Salvation Of Jack V.
Dec 27, 2025 11:42 PM

Author:Jacques Strauss

The Dubious Salvation Of Jack V.

It's 1989, and in the dying years of the Apartheid regime, eleven-year-old Jack Viljee considers life to be simple. He has firm views on race (complex), politics (straightforward), poofdas (inoffensive), God (dangerous) and sex (bewildering). The son of an Afrikaans father and an English mother, wedged between a strident older and a favoured younger sister, Jack allies himself with the family's beloved maid, Susie.

But the Viljee household has been upset by the arrival of Percy, Susie's fifteen-year-old son. Percy - young, bored and full of rage - makes everything awkward and embarassing for Jack. After one particularly humiliating event, Jack betrays Susie. The world, it turns out, is not so simple.

Reviews

Very, very funny... It is an utter delight, astute and knowing. Wonderful writing

—— Sarah Winman, author of WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT

Strauss writes with poise and comic timing. His prose is formal and correct; he establishes a tone of laconic regret yet sustains a striking lightness of touch particularly in passages of dialogue...It is, above all, rich in symbols and subtexts

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

Smart, charming, funny, highly astute and subtly political. A really terrific read

—— Douglas Coupland

Choi wields her satirical blade at a host of targets...The real triumph of Hello Kitty Must Die is that it refuses to apologize for Fiona's behavior

—— Los Angeles Times

Irving's popularity is not too difficult to understand. His world really is the world according to everyone

—— Time

Immensely moving and shot through with wit, humour and sadness, this book is addictive

—— Red

A premier storyteller, master of the tragiocomic and among the first rank of contemporary novelists

—— Los Angeles Times

Irving is peerless at presenting action, writing without a wasted second

—— Guardian

[Raven is] a freak writer, he defies classification. In wilder moments he suggests a loose, lunatic collaboration of Trollope, Ouida and Waugh

—— Observer

Crammed with comedy, suspense and action

—— Daily Mail

Riley's prose often sings, and there are moments of sheer dazzling brilliance here

—— bendutton.blogspot.co.uk

There was another brilliant curio from Gwendoline Riley, Opposed Positions... Riley writes cool, faintly autobiographical novellas about enigmatic young women who drift, think and write; she wears her influences (Woolf, Fitzgerald, Camus) with impressive insouciance, and this is one of her best

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian

[Riley] shows herself more than up to the job of writing the wasted hinterlands of the human heart

—— Anne Enright , Guardian

Clean, eminently readable prose and sometimes startling insights

—— Femke Colborne , Big Issue

The shifting, uncertain nature of human relationships – and their constant reinterpretation – is reflected in Riley’s understated prose, with moments of intense revelation thrown in like hand grenades.

—— Freya McClements , Irish Times

Utterly compelling and ruthlessly fascinating

—— Laurence Mackin , Irish Times

A thrilling story that also happens to be true, by a gifted young author... Binet manages it all with beautiful lucidity and...discreet storytelling mastery

—— James Lasdun , Guardian

Fresh, honest and exciting

—— Anthony Cummins , Spectator

Historial fiction for grown-ups

—— Robert McCrum , Observer

A gripping thriller and a moving testament to the heroes of the Czechoslovakian resistance. Their mission resets the path of history. Binet’s resets the path of the historical novel. He has a bright, bright future.

—— David Annand , Sunday Telegraph

Brilliant..

—— Sunday Times, Style

Thrilling.

—— Killian Fox , Observer

An engrossing literary experiment that still contains enough hard facts to function as a terrific yarn.

—— Andrzej Lukowski , Metro

Thrilling and engaging...Binet brilliantly builds the tension in the lead up to the assassination attempt, likewise the nerve-shredding aftermath of the incident.... Being so experimental yet so compelling as a writer is a real high-wire act, one only precious few authors have managed. Binet does it dazzlingly here, and I'm excited about what he's going to write next

—— Doug Johnstone , Big Issue

Mesmeric stuff; history brought to chilling, potent life

—— Leyla Sanai , Independent on Sunday

A literary tour de force

—— Alan Riding , Scotland on Sunday

Binet’s debut is a masterpiece of historical fiction… gripping read

—— Daily Telegraph

A nail-biting novel, a thorough work of history and, most successfully of all, an exercise in form: a story about the writing of a true story

—— Lucy Kellaway , Financial Times

Compelling

—— Barry Egan , The Sunday Independent

Binet's approach may be new, but his story-telling instincts are nicely old fashioned. Translator Sam Wood does justice to the lucid prose

—— Independent

Is it a novel about the Nazis? Or is it a memoir about a historian trying to write about the Nazis? Somehow, it’s both – and it’s brilliant

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

A triumph

—— Patrick Freyne , Irish Times

A must-read for people who have a real interest in the Third Reich … improbably entertaining and electrifyingly modern, a moving work

—— Royston Crow

With its slightly skewed perspective and the relative freshness of its approach, HHhH compels us once again to consider that this, surely, was humanity's lowest point: a war waged, not against those who thwarted Germany's territorial ambitions, but against all that was good and decent in the human soul. In so doing, it confounds those who would decry post-modernism as wilfully obscure, relativistic and lacking in conviction

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

French newcomer Laurent Binet hits the ground running in the engrossing novel within a novel

—— Sunday Telegraph

A breezily charming novel, with a thrilling story that also happens to be true, by a gifted young author amusingly anguished over the question of how to tell it … In principle there's nothing not to like about Laurent Binet's acclaimed debut, and HHhH is certainly a thoroughly captivating performance

—— James Lasdun , Guardian

This book fully justifies the lavish praise adorning its author

—— Absolutely Chelsea

Dazzling... It's stunningly brilliant

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

Stunning

—— Donal O’Donoghue , RTE Guide

Binet provides both context and impressive detail on the eventual assassination of Heydrich

—— Mark Perryman , Philosophy Footbal
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