St. Urbain's Horseman

About this book

St. Urbain s Horseman is a complex moving and wonderfully comic evocation of a generation consumed with guilt guilt at not joining every battle at not healing every wound. Thirty-seven-year-old Jake Hersh is a film director of modest success a faithful husband and a man in disgrace. His alter ego is his cousin Joey a legend in their childhood neighbourhood in Montreal. Nazi-hunter adventurer and hero of the Spanish Civil War Joey is the avenging horseman of Jake s impotent dreams. When Jake becomes embroiled in a scandalous trial in London England he puts his own unadventurous life on trial as well finding it desperately wanting as he steadfastly longs for the Horseman s glorious return. Irreverent deeply felt as scathing in its critique of social mores as it is uproariously funny St. Urbain s Horseman confirms Mordecai Richler s reputation as a pre-eminent observer of the hypocrisies and absurdities of modern life.