"Last Orders" by Graham Swift

"Last Orders" by Graham Swift won the Booker Prize in 1996.

I saw the film version of Last Orders years ago at a screening at the London Film Festival and enjoyed it, so when I was looking for prize winning books to read, I thought this would be a good one to read.

Sometimes books written from multiple perspectives can be difficult to follow or at least disjointed, but this one pulled it off well. It helped, of course, that each chapter was headed with the name of the person, so you didn’t have to spend a paragraph trying to work that out!

The story involves a journey from London to Margate to scatter the ashes of Jack, a butcher. The group involved in this seemingly easy mission are his old friend Ray who he meet in the war, Vic the undertaker, former boxer Lenny and Jack’s adopted son, Vince with whom he’d had a difficult relationship. Jack’s widow Amy doesn’t join them on the journey but her perspective is also given.

It did start slowly, even for someone who already knew the basic premise from the film, but after not too long I was gripped and felt empathy for the characters and a real sadness for the wasted opportunities in their lives. In comparison with the film, as is often the case, the book is much bleaker – there is no obvious happy ending here, and despite scattering the ashes, they don’t automatically achieve resolution.

Highly recommended.