Reading guide: Last Orders by Graham Swift
Four men reflect on their pasts as they say a final goodbye to their close friend
Sorrow and resentment mingle with passion and regret in Graham Swift’s Booker Prize-winning novel
Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his peculiar last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea at Margate. For reasons best known to herself, Jack’s widow, Amy, declines to join them.
On the surface a simple tale of an increasingly bizarre day out, the novel explores the complexity and courage of ordinary lives. Intensely local but also universal, faithful to the fleeting rhythms and accidental eloquence of everyday speech but also to the timeless truths of life and death, it succeeds in being comic, affectionate and wise, conferring on its stumbling, disappointed characters an enduring decency, dignity and depth.
Last Orders was first published in the UK in 1996 by Picador. It is now published by Simon & Schuster.
Graham Swift
About the Author
Graham Swift is the author of 11 novels and three collections of short stories. His books have appeared in over 30 languages
Other nominated books by Graham Swift
Graham Swift’s powerful and atmospheric tale of murder, redemption and of the discovery, for better or worse, of the hidden forces inside us
Two East Anglian families are linked by a deep secret in Graham Swift’s eloquent and poignant exploration of water, history, desire and tragedy
