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. For reasons best known to herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them. On the surface the tale of a simple if increasingly bizarre day's outing, "Last Orders" is Graham Swift's most poignant exploration of the complexity and courage of ordinary lives.
'His finest book to date; emotionally charged and technically superb..."Last Orders" is about how we live and how we die and our struggle to make abiding connections between the two' - "Times Literary Supplement". 'Inspired...His finest novel yet' - "Guardian". 'A triumph...A novel that unflinchingly contemplates human perishability, and that also pays unsentimental tribute to human resilience' - "Sunday Times".
'Tragic, comic and wonderfully compassionate' - "Daily Mail". 'A book to match his masterpiece, "Waterland"..."Last Orders" confirms his reputation as one of the great contemporary chroniclers of landscape and memory' - "Observer". 'Beautifully written, gentle, funny, truthful, touching and profound' - Salman Rushdie.
