No More Mr. Nice Guy

by Howard Jacobson

Frank Ritz is a television critic. His partner, Melissa Paul, is the author of pornographic novels for liberated women. He watches crap all day; she writes crap all day. It's a life. Or it was a life. But now they're fighting, locked in oral combat. He won't shut up and she is putting her finger down her throat again. So there's only one thing for it - Frank has to go. But go where? And do what? Frank Ritz has been on heat more or less continuously since he could speak his own name. Let him out of the house and his first instinct is to go looking for sex. Deviant sex, treacherous sex, even straight sex, so long as it's immoderate - he's never been choosy. But what happens when sex is all you know but no longer what you want? (19990115)

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

272 pages, Paperback

First published July 21, 1998

About the author

Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, England, and educated at Cambridge. His many novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Who’s Sorry Now? and Kalooki Nights (both longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), and, most recently, The Act of Love. Jacobson is also a respected critic and broadcaster, and writes a weekly column for the Independent. He lives in London.

Profile of Howard Jacobson in The New York Times.

“The book's appeal to Jewish readers is obvious, but like all great Jewish art — the paintings of Marc Chagall, the books of Saul Bellow, the films of Woody Allen — it is Jacobson's use of the Jewish experience to explain the greater human one that sets it apart. Who among us is so certain of our identity? Who hasn't been asked, "What's your background" and hesitated, even for a split second, to answer their inquisitor? Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question forces us to ask that of ourselves, and that's why it's a must read, no matter what your background.”—-David Sax, NPR.

Reviews

[Frank Callaghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up, quite randomly as a 3 for 2 deal, knowing nothing about the author, but noting the sticker on the front cover that said, 'Winner of the Mann Booker Prize'. Prompted by this I started reading. I had forgotten that I had read The Finkler Question by Jacobson, which was the book that won the award. Deceptive little trap on the sticker on the cover!! Another small attraction was that it was for sale, wrapped in sealed cellophane and signed by the author. Trivial, I know, but it makes you pick it up!
Had I stopped reading it before the final 2 chapters I would have given it 1 star. Had there been more writing like the final 2 chapters I would have given it 4 stars, maybe 5.
Here is an author who can write, no doubting this. His style is intellectually strong, and when it comes to humour and wit, his writing is often genuinely very funny. I have to admit, I did laugh. Not just smile, but laugh. So what's the problem?
If the competition was to see how many times he can use the 'F' word, and the 'C' word, on one page, or in one paragraph, or indeed in one sentence, then here you have a winner. If you want to have revealed the absolute detail of every sexual act undertaken by this man and have it grahically described to you, then here you certainly have it. If however you are likey to find that page after page of this material becomes at best boring, then here here you will have a book that quickly turns you off.
I am not prudish. It wasn't that it was offensive, although many might readily find it to be so, but it was gratuitous, uncecessary, extreme, unpleasant.
And yet, it was often witty. When I then got to the final 2 chapters, much of what had luridly been described before fell into place and became resolved, and I did find those last 2 chapters very clever and well written. But to get there I wonder, did he have to be quite so explicit? Did that gain him anything other than knowing that he has an extensive knowledge of sexual words and practices. I sense not.

[Tracy Towley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read some really awful books this year, but until No More Mr. Nice Guy I'd managed to trudge all the way through to the end of them. It blows my mind that the author won the Man Booker prize (for another book). I cannot imagine this guy writing anything that's even worth staying awake to read, let alone worthy of a prize.

The protagonist is going through a mid-life crisis, and so he decides to track down a series of women he's had mostly unsatisfying sexual relationships with over the years. I've read other reviews that took issue with the cussing. Being 1/3 sailor myself, I didn't mind that, and I wasn't put off by the graphic sexual details either - though they were plentiful.

What did put me off, and eventually led to me putting the book down, was that this guy could write about such sensational stuff, and somehow the result is one of the most boring books I've ever read. Seriously, a snooze fest. The writing was dull and rambling. Even the 'shocking' parts were dully told. I made it more than halfway through the book and I do not feel even the tiniest bit guilty for not finishing it. Good riddance.

[Darryl · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frank is a 50 year old British television critic, who has just left his partner, a highly dysfunctional author of feminist porn plagued by bulimia and neuroses. He is literally a talking and breathing penis, whose thoughts about having sex are interrupted only by eating, sleeping and other necessary bodily functions. He returns to Oxford and other towns where his sexual conquests as an adolescent and young man took place, but to his apparent surprise, he cannot relive the past. The novel is well written, but incredibly juvenile, vulgar and boring, and it may well be the worst book I've read this year.

[Gwen · Rating 2 out of 5]

As we follow Frank Ritz on his journey of exploration, we learn a great deal about him. Frank does what anyone thrown out of their house/dismissed from a relationship would do: retrace his steps from some of his happier moments as a youth. We see Frank's younger self, through reminiscence, as well as his contemporary self. Sadly, the years do not seem to have had added much maturity to Frank, or maybe it's just that men really do ruminate about sex and female body parts all the time, and the rest of us just don't know that. A man would likely read this novel differently than I did, finding himself nodding --in agreement? in disbelief? --where I was bobbing in astonishment.

[Jeffrey Hart · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this novel better than The Finkler Question, although it has some of the same problems: a self-loathing Jewish character, other people who are equally difficult to indentify with, strange British yiddishisms, and lots of senseless extramarital sex. The main character is a TV critic who hates popular culture of all kinds and who is having trouble with his marriage. Totally driven by thoughts of sex, he has trouble staying focused on anything. When he gets tossed out of his house, he goes on a strange quest to the garden spots of England. In the end, he seems to find himself, but I won't tell you how.

[Kent Winward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fifty year old Frank isn't doing so hot. Jacobson's novel is more mid-life meltdown than crisis. Having been made stupid by sex for his younger years, Frank, even with his ebbing libido, seems most comfortable being ridiculous in the sexual realm. As with all Jacobson's novels, the ridiculous and comic merge with the sublime to explore loss in all its facets.

[John Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

A review comparing this favourably with my least favourite Philip Roth novel (Sabbath's Theatre) possibly ensured the same fate - boredom. Both say something about male preoccupation with sex but the topic is perhaps not interesting enough to sustain a novel. This is at least shorter.

[Kameswari · Rating 2 out of 5]

sigh. a book from a woman's point of view about men, written by a man. just wish it hadn't been so fractured in places.

[Ryan Dash · Rating 1 out of 5]

Did not finish. While great care was clearly given to the diction, it was too clunky for me. And the intense sense of jadedness was not promising for the rest of the book.

[Keith · Rating 1 out of 5]

Frank Ritz, a successful television critic and inveterate sex addict, is in the throes of a significant mid-life crisis. At the age of 50, he has just been kicked out of the London house he shares with Melissa Paul, his long-time domestic partner and author feminist-oriented pornography. This cathartic event sets Frank on a motor journey around England, where he revisits scenes of past sexual humiliations as he sorts through the emotional wreckage of his life. No More Mr. Nice Guy is essentially one man’s twisted coming-of-age story, but one in which the protagonist’s heightened awareness and hard-won wisdom come quite late in the game.

I really disliked this novel; in fact, it is the first book I have read in a long time that I had to struggle to finish. Although well written and (very) occasionally funny, Jacobson tells a tale in which there are simply no appealing characters. Certainly, Frank’s particular set of neuroses are so unbelievable—in addition to being so very British and so very Yiddish—that I suspect few readers will be able to sympathize with or relate to him. I imagine that the author thought he was describing the travails of Everyman, but the main character’s condition is not remotely similar to that of any man I know. I did not care at all what happened to Frank, which made his delusional, self-serving psychological musings and explicit-bordering-on-vile sexual reminiscences difficult to stomach after a while. Stated plainly, I was both repulsed and bored by this story, in roughly equal measures.

This book was originally published in England in 1998 and has been re-released in 2011 for the North American audience, undoubtedly in an attempt to capitalize on the wider profile that Jacobson has enjoyed since winning the 2010 Man Booker prize for The Finkler Question. While understandable, this marketing strategy seems unlikely to succeed, largely because this turgid and depressing novel is so vastly inferior to that later work. Indeed, having read The Finkler Question first, perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about No More Mr. Nice Guy is that it helps the reader understand just how much the author’s fiction has improved over time.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not quite sure what to say about this read, but I did find it entertaining, poignant, and filled with clever wordplay. The humor is that dry, cynical British humor that's always a bit irony and self-deprecation. And it's cut with plenty of crass language and startlingly graphic descriptions of sex, so that you never feel really comfortable with knowing the direction of the story or the tone. But it feels like the author *does* know, and every single word is an intentional choice for effect. The story itself is about one 50-year-old man's forced quest for self purpose, as his previous desires drive him less but also as he comes to understand himself more. Did I mention the MC is a masochist? There's a lot of contrasting concepts being explored- male/female dynamics but also pleasure/pain (and not just physically, but emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually). It was a book that would have me smirking or laughing one moment, but then needing to set it down and reflect on something poignantly true, or a thoughtful philosophical question the next moment. Consequently, it was not a fast or easy read. But the clear care with which Jacobson wrote was appreciated, and I'm curious to read some of his other novels now.

[Lorraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

When middle-aged TV critic Frank is asked to leave the house by his author partner Mel, he goes on a quest to revisit the locations of his many sexual conquests, seemingly without plan or aim but just led by the one thing that’s been a constant in his life.

I’m a huge fan of Howard Jacobson and the quality of the writing in this novel is the thing that kept me reading to the end, but the topic and the sexual encounters detailed along the way made for a sometimes depressing read. Frank and Mel both came across as unappealing characters (of all the characters in the novel, only D, the stand-up comedian, seemed to have any warmth and likeability) and at times I had difficulty picturing Frank as anyone other than Alan Partridge, the Steve Coogan comedy character.

The sexual detail in the book enters the realms of the grotesque at times, and the younger Frank’s encounters with his students seem very near the knuckle.

I’m glad this isn’t the first Howard Jacobson book I’d read, but is just one of the ones I’m catching up on. I wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to Jacobson.

[Pete Wyeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A depressing grubby read. Frank is a sex addict how enjoys nothing in life. Not even sex. He goes from woman to woman moaning and whinging all the way. He is such boring and horrible company you'll be sick of him by page 50.

I don't know if the authors intention was to highlight a slow descent into degeneracy that comes with age. I don't really care. Germaine Greer said this novel is "one way a woman can learn what a man feels when he's making love to her". I can assure you it is not.

I enjoyed some of the turns of phrase. The writing was quite good and some of the scenes were amusing in a bleak way but don't expect to be charmed here.

[David Bramhall · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's no question that Howard Jacobson is a brilliant word-smith. His settings are vividly evoked, his conversations realistic. The words tumble onto his pages in glorious profusion, often funny, frequently arresting and always thought-provoking.

But at the end of the day (or the end of the book, I should really say) this is just a book about sex. Not loving sex, not erotic sex - far from it - but just sex, dirty, oderous, indiscriminate and complete with bodily secretions and stray pubes. I'm not sure it was worth wading through, to be honest.

[David Gagen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious.

[Steve Petherbridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank Ritz is a middle aged television critic, probably going through a mid-life crisis, coming to terms with an existence where he is becoming invisible to the opposite sex and becoming less virile with a reduced libido. His partner, Melissa Paul, is the author of pornographic novels for very, very liberated women. He, as he describes his work, watches crap all day; she, alternatively, writes crap all day. It's something of a life. Or it was a life. He describes his past exploits quite graphically, so, be warned. By exploits, I mean those of the horizontal jogging or swinging out of the chandelier variety. Frank has turned 50 and believes that he is on a downward slide. We real over-fifties know differently....er... don't we? Frank and Mel are permanently fighting, locked in oral combat to go with their amoral relationship to date. He won't shut the f*** up and she is putting her finger down her throat again. So there's only one thing for it - Frank has to flee, or, rather he is told to flee! But go where? And do what? He embarks on a symbolic search for himself and a new path, sometimes revisiting old comrades and venues of past exploits. "Frank Ritz has been on heat more or less continuously since he could speak his own name. Let him out of the house and his first instinct is to go looking for sex. Deviant sex, treacherous sex, even straight sex, so long as it's immoderate - he's never been choosy. But what happens when sex is all you know but no longer what you want?" This is his crisis. This is the bridge he must cross. I found it an easy read, treating it as a satire of man, middle-aged, mid-life, adrift, in the extreme. Frank's brain has always been in his dick, as it is with many of us, though hopefully not as simplistically so in most of us. But, what happens when that brain is entering a state of dementia? There is a kind of redemption and enlightenment discovered in the end, the reader thinks! A good laugh. Yes, we men can laugh at ourselves, but, don't tell the ladies!

[Akash · Rating 2 out of 5]

I apparently mistook this book for the more popular No More Mr. Nice Guy! by Robert Glover.

I had read many recommendations for the Glover book and was looking forward to reading it. Throughout reading this book I was actively searching for the wisdom that others claimed they got from the book.

Zilch. Nada. Barely any relevant information that I was looking for when I bought this book. I still decided to stick through it assuming that there will be a grand reveal and I'll get some sort of an epiphany. Nope.

Having finished a book that I thought would help me out and having not found that help I jumped on to the internet to do a "post-mortem" of what I read. I actually felt that I was not smart enough to identify the metaphorical, subtle and inconspicuous message that this book had within it. Lo! and behold! I read the wrong fucking book.

So much for trying to wade my way through references that are both irrelevant and obscure to me. I still don't know if this book is above me to be able to grasp, if it has the plot or prose that only a Britisher can relate to or if it is just trash.

I'm leaning towards the last assumption.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jacobson's work in this story recalls for me the picaresque sexuality of a J.P. Donleavy tale and the soft porn ("the soft gartery sadism", as Jacobson puts it) of a Philip Roth novel, as the author's creation, Frank Ritz, bumbles through an adult rite of passage.

"When you are used to mental turbulence, and even have come to love the noise it makes, come to recognise it as a sign that you are intellectually alive, how do you go about silencing it without feeling that you have immured or even damaged your best self?" asks Frank.

The novel's excellent concluding sentence may not provide Frank clear instruction, but it does transform the story into a love story, from one of confused self love and self loathing.

[B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took a lot of effort to make it through this novel. I wanted to like it for it's witty and provocative nature and subject but I found myself merely disgusted. I was intrigued to read about a humorous but intelligent look into the "male condition" but I found myself simply put off by the profuse use of misogyny and view that all women are "cunts." It is troubling to think that anyone would consider this the male condition. Even if it is a humorous take on the subject, it is not a very good one. I expected better.

[Claire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not so sure this guy was all that nice to begin with.

[Eddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written book about a man who wants to return to his adolescence as far as sex is concerned. But he can't. The women who he cared for only sexually, ended up hating him. This was one long rant about male sexuality and how it controlled his life. He learned at the end of the book that there were important areas to consider in a relationship other than sex. In a personal relationship or in one's relationship to the world.

[Leah Giovan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seldom say this - but this book was just awful. Saved only by a bit of occassional weird humor, and acceptable writing. There wasn't a single character that you could like, or want to know more about - or spend one more minute with. I didn't care that Frank left his bulemic wife, nor did I care if they got back together in the end. Don't waste your time on this book.

[Brian · Rating 2 out of 5]

An occasionally amusing trifle, though for an American reader a glossary of British slang might have been helpful. And while I can't imagine a woman who would enjoy it, primarily due to the ubiquity of the dreaded "C" word, I also don't have the slightest idea to whom among the male persuasion I would recommend it. On the plus side, it was a quick read.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Won this from Goodreads:) I liked the writing style of Jacobson, he has a fun way of playing with words and a dry sense of humour. I found it hard to truly like the main character, but I'm not sure if you are meant to like him. Reading this books makes me want to read The Finkler Question.

[Pauline · Rating 1 out of 5]

Think this could have been a really funny book, if there wasn't so much swearing in it, when i came across the C word, that was it for me, i have too many books i want to read,to have to read that word, and the F word every 5 mins........doesn't work for me in a book.......

[Jody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Won from GoodReads/Bloomsbury-thanks! Good book, adult content.

Story is written from a man's point of view about a man in mid-life crisis that has been told to leave his house by his partner. He takes you on a journey on his past and present and his new found freedom. Lots of dry witted humor.

[Jonathan Edgington · Rating 4 out of 5]

I simply love Howard Jacobson books. They all all so cleverly written, intelligent, funny and entertaining. This is one of his best. It's been described as a "sulphurous tirade against the joys of domesticity..."

[Amanda Sebert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads First Reads. This book is about a man going through his mid-life crisis. It was a little too raw and harsh for my taste.

[Brittany eggleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a good book about a couple going through mid life crisis. The book is funny.

[J.A. Carter-Winward · Rating 5 out of 5]

THis book was laugh-out-loud funny, and a continuation of Jacobsen's theme/obsession with the connection between sexual pain, pleasure and betrayal. A beautiful and hilarious book.