The Year of the Jouncer

A great many writers use their own lives as the raw material for their work but few have done it with the wit and courage of Simon Gray. Indeed, he could be said to have developed a new literary genre, part autobiography, part razor-sharp reflections on the world around him, part penetrating observations of friends and colleagues. Like his previous best-seller, The Smoking Diaries, this new book has the rare ability to make you laugh out loud on one page and ponder the sad mysteries of mortality on the next, and sometimes to do both at the same time. Here, contained within these joyful, perceptive, compassionate pages, is the chronicle of an extraordinary Year of the Jouncer.