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Last Orders
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.Celebrating 40 years of outstanding international writing, this is one of the essential Picador novels reissued in a beautiful new series style.
Here We Are
It is Brighton, 1959, and the theatre at the end of the pier is having its best summer season in years. Ronnie, a brilliant young magician, and Evie, his dazzling assistant, are top of the bill, drawing audiences each night. Meanwhile, Jack – Jack Robinson, as in ‘before you can say’ – is everyone’s favourite compère, a born entertainer, holding the whole show together. As the summer progresses, the off-stage drama between the three begins to overshadow their theatrical success, and events unfold which will have lasting consequences for all their futures. Rich, comic, alive and subtly devastating, Here We Are is a masterly piece of literary magicianship which pulls back the curtai...
Waterland
'Perfectly controlled, superbly written. Waterland is original, compelling and narration of the highest order' Guardian In the years since its first publication, in 1983, Waterland has established itself as one of the classics of twentieth-century British literature: a visionary tale of England's Fen country; a sinuous meditation on the workings of history; and a family story startling in its detail and universal in its reach. This edition includes an introduction, by the author, written to celebrate the book's 25th anniversary. 'Graham Swift has mapped his Waterland like a new Wessex. He appropriates the Fens as Moby Dick did whaling or Wuthering Heights the moors. This is a beautiful, serious and intelligent novel, admirably ambitious and original' Observer 'A 300-page tour de force . . . A burst of exuberant fictive energy' Evening Standard 'Waterland is a formidably intelligent book, animated by an impressive, angry pity at what human creatures are capable of doing to one another in the name of love and need. The most powerful novel I have read for some time' New York Review of Books
Graham Swift
This book offers an accessible critical introduction to the work of Graham Swift, one of Britain's most significant contemporary authors. Through detailed readings of his novels and short stories from The Sweet Shop Owner to The Light of Day, Daniel Lea lucidly addresses the key themes of history, loss, masculinity and ethical redemption, to present a fresh approach to Swift.
Graham Swift
Graham Swift is among the foremost contemporary British writers, having published seven highly acclaimed novels which are widely read by students and general public alike. Waterland has become a modern classic, and Last Orders won the Booker prize for fiction in 2006. This study covers all Swift's novels to The Light of Day: it offers a close reading of each of the novels, exploring the innovative formal strategies and identifying such recurrent themes as the presence of the past in the present, the blurring of distinctions between 'history' and 'story', fact and fiction, and the possibilities of redemption in a contemporary social and emotional wasteland. For the most part set in an urban, middle-class, claustrophobic and loveless present, and focused on usually fraught relationships between husbands and wives, parents and children, these recognisably postmodern novels are seen here as symptomatic of contemporary Britain: a world where, in the shadow of the nuclear holocaust, we approach 'the End o
Ever After
‘A subtle book that lingers in the mind . . . Here is a writer of very considerable power’ Daily Telegraph An academic sits alone in his college room thinking about the people he has lost. Powerful memories crowd in on him – childhood days in Paris; his exuberant, glamorous mother; his mysterious father; and the brash young American who becomes his step-father. Mingled with this emerges a tender portrait of his relationship with his actress wife. Ever After is a poignant elegy to lost faith and lost hope. It is also a powerful affirmation of love. ‘Touching and beguiling . . . Graham Swift has written a deeply felt and rather haunting novel’ Anita Brookner, Spectator ‘Swift is set apart by his acute observation and thrilling exactness of description . . . Exceptional’ The Times ‘A remarkable feat’ Evening Standard ‘Graham Swift has performed a literary tour de force in this novel’ Literary Review
Tomorrow
From Graham Swift, Booker Prize-winning author of Last Orders, comes a masterful and compassionate novel of rare emotional power and narrative skill. On a midsummer’s night, Paula lies awake beside her sleeping husband. She and Mike have been married for twenty-five years, a good marriage; they have two teenage children, Nick and Kate, peacefully sleeping in their own nearby rooms. But Paula’s eyes won’t close: the next morning she and Mike have to tell the children something that will redefine all their lives. Recalling the years before and after her children were born, Paula begins a story that is both a glowing celebration of love possessed and a moving acknowledgement of the fear o...
Out of This World
In 1972, Robert Beech, First World War survivor and present-day armaments maker, is killed by a car bomb. The event breaks the career of his son Harry, a news photographer, and comes close to destroying his granddaughter Sophie. Ten years later, the Falklands War has begun and both Harry, now working as an aerial photographer, and Sophie, visiting an analyst in New York, are haunted by a past that has scarred and divided them. ‘As tense as a thriller . . . a powerful and exciting book that raises uncomfortable political questions’ The Times ‘It appeals to the emotions, the intellect and the imagination, and its elegance is as durable as Greek art . . . a novel for those who still believe in the importance of fiction, indeed of art’ Scotsman ‘The novel succeeds brilliantly. The impression is of having been shown all the majesty as well as the emotional complexity of history’ Time Out ‘Not a book the reader is likely to forget, Out of this World deserves to be ranked at the forefront of contemporary literature’ New York Times Book Review ‘Brilliant clarity and depth’ Mail on Sunday
England and Other Stories
A collection of new stories from the Booker-prize winning author of Last Orders, and of the Sunday Times bestseller Mothering Sunday. Meet Dr Shah, who has never been to India, and Mrs Kaminski, on her way to Poland via A&E. Meet Holly and Polly, who have come to their own Anglo-Irish understanding; Charlie and Don, who have seen the docks turn into Docklands; Daisy Baker, terrified of Yorkshire; and Johnny Dewhurst, stranded on Exmoor. Binding these stories together is Graham Swift's affectionate but unflinching instinct for the story of us all: an evocation of that mysterious body that is a nation, deepened by the palpable sense of our individual bodies finding or losing their way in the n...
Waterland
Set in the bleak Fen Country of East Anglia, and spanning some 240 years in the lives of its haunted narrator and his ancestors, Waterland is a book that takes in eels and incest, ale-making and madness, the heartless sweep of history and a family romance as tormented as any in Greek tragedy. "Waterland, like the Hardy novels, carries with all else a profound knowledge of a people, a place, and their interweaving.... Swift tells his tale with wonderful contemporary verve and verbal felicity.... A fine and original work."--Los Angeles Times
