The title of J. M. Coetzee`s recent novel The Childhood of Jesus forces readers to anticipate a story of the Christ-child only to frustrate them. This is a fine example of what Gerard Genette calls the “Jupien effect”: the paratext which is supposed to aid the text usurps the place of the text and refuses to be secondary. Using Genette`s theory of paratexts, this study tries to come terms with Coetzee`s title which does not fulfill its descriptive function nor delivers what it first promises: a story of Jesus. In other words, this study is an attempt to explain the “Jupien effect” of Coetzee`s paratext: how it “tends to go beyond its function and to turn itself into an impediment, from then on playing its own game to the detriment of the text`s game.” Ultimately, this study is to suggest that by making use of the twisted paratext Coetzee is engaged in a sort of postmodern game: collapsing the hierarchical principle existing between the paratext and the text, the principle which has been “held almost unconditionally for centuries.”