Kevern vet ikke hvorfor faren hans alltid tok to fingre over leppene hans når han sa et ord som begynte på j. Men ikke da, og heller ikke nå er tiden inne for å stille spørsmål. Ailinn har også vokst opp i mørket uten å vite hvem hun er eller hvor hun kommer fra. På deres første date kysser Kevern blåmerkene under øynene hennes. Han spør ikke om hvem som har skadet henne. De er ikke sikre på om de er blitt forelsket av seg selv, eller om noen har presset de inn i armene på hverandre. Men hvem har i så fall presset dem, og hvorfor? Romanen er satt i fremtiden i en verden der fortiden er et farlig sted, og som ikke kan nevnes eller oppsøkes. To mennesker forelsker seg, men uten å vite hvor de kommer fra eller hvor de er på vei.
This book was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize. Set in the future - a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited - J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying. Two people fall in love, not yet knowing where they have come from or where they are going. Kevern doesn't know why his father always drew two fingers across his lips when he said a word starting with a J. It wasn't then, and isn't now, the time or place to be asking questions. Ailinn too has grown up in the dark about who she was or where she came from. On their first date Kevern kisses the bruises under her eyes. He doesn't ask who hurt her. Brutality has grown commonplace. They aren't sure if they have fallen in love of their own accord, or whether they've been pushed into each other's arms. But who would have pushed them, and why? Hanging over the lives of all the characters in this novel is a momentous catastrophe - a past event shrouded in suspicion, denial and apology, now referred to as What Happened, If It Happened. J is a novel to be talked about in the same breath as Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, thought-provoking and life-changing. It is like no other novel that Howard Jacobson has written.
