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FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ASYLUM, TRAUMA AND THE WARDROBE MISTRESS
'Wonderful, thrilling' JOHN BANVILLE
'Has pleasure on every page' TIMES
It's 1975 and Francis McNulty, ageing poet, retired, is living in his childhood home in Cleaver Square with his daughter Gilly. Haunted by memories of the Spanish Civil War, in which he drove an ambulance, he sees awful visions of his old nemesis, General Franco, and is powerfully reminded of a terrible act of betrayal he committed in Spain. When Gilly announces her upcoming marriage, Francis is forced to confront his past, once and for all.
'Impressive' GUARDIAN
'A very moving portrayal of a complicated father-daughter relationship, neither of them fully able to break away' RACHEL JOYCE
About the author
Patrick McGrath is the author of two short story collections and nine novels, including the international bestseller, Asylum. He is also the author of Writing Madness, a collection of his short fiction and selected non-fiction. His novel Trauma was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and Spider was filmed by David Cronenberg from McGrath's adaptation. He co-edited an influential anthology of short fiction, The New Gothic, and recent non-fiction includes introductions to The Monk, Moby Dick and Barnaby Rudge. Patrick McGrath lives in Manhattan and London.
Summary
Neither he nor his daughter Gillian, who lives with him, know what to do.When Gillian announces her impending marriage to a senior civil servant, Francis realises that he must adapt to new circumstances - and that the time has come to confront his past once and for all.
Report
It's not until you read a novel by Patrick McGrath that you remember how boring most books are. Even stories that keep readers turning the pages for the plot can be flatly told, and many first-person narrators have no individuality. Not so with McGrath, whose novels make a distinctive voice an essential part of the telling, and remind us that the bias of the teller is an integral element in any tale. Last Days in Cleaver Square is a passionate, tempest-tossed memoir by Francis McNulty - made up of equal parts what he's telling us and what he isn't . . . The narrative voice might be his ripest yet . . . The pleasure in a Patrick McGrath novel is the travelling, not the arrival, and this is a rare novel that has pleasure on every page. The Times
