THE DUBIOUS SALVATION OF JACK V.

Book ID/图书代码： 04851310B40295

English Summary/英文概要： This isn’t the easiest book to compare to others, but the perspective and frank voice, and the playfulness, is slightly reminiscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and of Jonathan Safran Foer, with a dash of Houellebecq, perhaps. It should appeal to some of the same readers, and to those who read Brett Easton Ellis, Roth, Salinger, Coetzee et al.

Even as an eleven year old I had a strong sense that the Universe was setting up nasty traps for me, all sorts of really horrible ways to die in which (and this is the crucial point) I would in some way be complicit in my own demise (and this before I had done anything to warrant this particular anxiety). I have always been shit scared of the deranged universe and it’s not really that stupid and irrational…it gets all of us eventually.

It’s 1989, and in the dying years of the Apartheid regime, eleven-year-old Jack Viljee considers himself the centre of his world. The son of an Afrikaans father and an English mother, wedged between a strident older and favoured younger sister, Jack allies himself with the family’s beloved maid, Susie. Plagued by portents of doom, Jack nevertheless has firm views on race (complex), politics (straightforward), poofdas (inoffensive), God (dangerous), sex (bewildering), sisters (disappointing), parents (unfailing), Zulus (frightening) and the KGB (cunning).

His Afrikaans family are wanting in a number of respects: they have too many children, let the maid keep chickens in the backyard, buy tomato sauce in ten-litre vats and cover their furniture in plastic. Still, there is no doubt they could wipe the floor with his soft English relatives. Either way, at his new school he knows that he is set on an inexorable path to Englishness. Life is simple.

But the comfortable domesticity of 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 embarrassing for Jack. After one particularly humiliating event, Jack betrays Susie and learns that even the most childish act can avalanche beyond his most outlandish imaginings. The world, it turns out, is not so simple.

Smart, funny and a little dangerous, The Dubious Salvation of Jack V. is a startlingly original debut from a powerful new voice.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 令人驚豔的南非文學新聲

11歲的Jack Viljee，出生在南非種族隔離時代，父親是南非籍的黑人，母親則是英國白人，除了他外還有一個嘮叨的姊姊及受寵的妹妹。他的生母其實跟家人的互動不多，反倒是家中黑人女傭Susie，跟孩子的相處較親密，尤其是和Jack。儘管種族隔離造成許多不平等的生命對待，對Jack而言他有自己堅信的觀點（政治一點也不複雜；跑步是種繁瑣的運動；性讓人困惑），似乎不受整個大環境的影響。
但直到Susie的15歲兒子Percy到來，開始讓他在自己安穩的宇宙中產生一些波盪。Percy是位易怒及憤世不平的青年，常常找機會想讓Jack丟臉或失態，而就在發生讓他感到羞辱的某事件後，Jack背叛了他最親愛的Susie，也改變了他對真實世界的想像…(Vincent)

Awards/获奖情况：Korean rights for The Dubious Salvation of Jack V by Jacques Strauss sold to Minumsa.

About the Author/作者介绍： Debut novelist Jacques Strauss is a 30 year old South African. Strauss studied philosophy at university, obsessed over Derrida and now writes reams of corporate copy for a London firm.
Jacques Strauss現年30歲的南非作家，大學念的是哲學，對法國哲學家Jacques Derrida極度的著迷。這是他第一本小說創作。

Format:电子手稿

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：

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