Who's Sorry Now? — Howard Jacobson

Marvin Kreitman, the luggage baron of South London, lives for sex. Or at

least he lives for women. At present he loves four women--his mother,

his wife Hazel, and his two daughters--and is in love with five more.

Charlie Merriweather, on the other hand, nice Charlie, loves just the

one woman, also called Charlie, the wife with whom he has been writing

children's books and having nice sex for twenty years. Once a week the

two friends meet for a Chinese lunch, contriving never quite to have the

conversation they would like to have--about fidelity and womanizing,

and which makes you happier. Until today. It is Charlie who takes the

dangerous step of asking for a piece of Marvin's disordered life, but

what follows embroils them all, the wives no less than the husbands. And

none of them will ever be the same again.