Joshua Then and Now is about Joshua Shapiro today, and the Joshua he was. His father a boxer turned honest crook, his mother an erotic dancer whose greatest performance was at Joshua’s bar mitzvah, Joshua has overcome his inauspicious beginnings in the Jewish ghetto of Montreal to become a celebrated television writer and a successful journalist. But Joshua, now middle-aged, is not a happy man. Incapacitated by a freak accident, anguished by the disappearance of his WASP wife, and caught up in a sex scandal, Joshua is besieged by the press and tormented by the ghosts of his youth. Set in Montreal, the novel chronicles the rocky journey we all make between the countries of the past and the present. Raucous, opinionated, tender, Joshua Then and Now is a memorable excursion into Mordecai Richler's comic universe.

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“A richly comic satire in the best uninhibited Richler tradition, full of sharp jabs and ticking bombs.…”
–Globe and Mail

“A superb work, a rowdy, roistering tour de force.…It’s Richler the Irreverent at the height of his powers.”
–Calgary Herald

"Full of splendid writing.…Funny, compassionate, ambitious, perceptive and rich in character.…Richler has unflagging comic energy.”
–Chicago Tribune

"Wildly funny.”
–Joseph Heller, author of Catch-22

"A thoroughly enjoyable, exhilarating read.”
–Times Literary Supplement

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Mordecai Richler was born in Montreal in 1931. The author of ten successful novels, numerous screenplays, and several books of non-fiction, his novel, Barney's Version, was an acclaimed bestseller and the winner of The Giller Prize, the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, the QSpell Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Novel in the Caribbean and Canada region. Richler also won two Governor General’s Awards and was shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize.

Mordecai Richler died in Montreal in July 2001.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

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