About the Book: Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is brilliantly reinvented by Howard Jacobson, in his merciless, sharp and funny story of revenge, justice and antisemitism. 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… 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.