Last Orders (Swift)

Last Orders
Graham Swift, 1996
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679766629

Summary
Winner, 1996 Booker Prize and James Tait Black Memorial Prize

Last Orders is the story of four men once close to London butcher Jack Dodds, who meet to carry out his last wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea. The men, whose lives revolve around work, family, the racetrack and their favourite pub, must make their way down to a seaside town to complete the task.

Through conversation and memory they trace the paths they have followed by choice and by accident; through the Second World War and its aftermath, through the dramas of family life, and their relationships with each other.

In their brilliantly realized, richly nuanced voices, Swift has created a narrative language that perfectly expresses not only the comforts of old habits and friendships, but also the complexity and courage of ordinary lives. (From the publisher.)