Shylock is My Name: The Merchant of Venice Retold (Hogarth Shakespeare)

**The second novel in [The Hogarth Shakespeare Series](https://www.waterstones.com/booklist/358293/the-hogarth-shakespeare-series)**

‘Who is this guy, Dad? What is he doing here?’

With an absent wife and a daughter going off the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is in need of someone to talk to. So when he meets Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, he invites him back to his house. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship.

Elsewhere in the Golden Triangle, the rich, manipulative Plurabelle (aka Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever Christine) is the face of her own TV series, existing in a bubble of plastic surgery and lavish parties. She shares prejudices and a barbed sense of humour with her loyal friend D’Anton, whose attempts to play Cupid involve Strulovitch’s daughter – and put a pound of flesh on the line.

Howard Jacobson’s version of The Merchant of Venice bends time to its own advantage as it asks what it means to be a father, a Jew and a merciful human being in the modern world.

'Jacobson is quite simply a master of comic precision. He writes like a dream' - *Evening Standard*

"The funniest British novelist since Kingsley Amis or Tom Sharpe". - *Mail on Sunday* [The Hogarth Shakespeare Series](https://www.waterstones.com/booklist/358293/the-hogarth-shakespeare-series) sees Shakespeare’s works retold by acclaimed and bestselling novelists of today. Other titles in the series include: *[The Gap of Time](https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-gap-of-time/jeanette-winterson/9781781090299), [Shylock is My Name](https://www.waterstones.com/book/shylock-is-my-name/howard-jacobson/9781781090282), [Vinegar Girl](https://www.waterstones.com/book/vinegar-girl/anne-tyler/9780099589877), [Hag Seed](https://www.waterstones.com/book/hag-seed/margaret-atwood/9780099594024)*, [*New Boy*](https://www.waterstones.com/book/new-boy/tracy-chevalier/9781781090312) and [*Dunbar*](https://www.waterstones.com/book/dunbar/edward-st-aubyn/9781781090381) by Edward St. Aubyn.