Jack Dodds's last
orders were to have his ashes strewn into the sea off Margate Pier.
Three of his elderly buddies and his adopted son carry out the
commission, taking a day trip during which each of them thinks about
Jack and sizes up his own life.
Much of Last Orders takes
place in the heads of the four pilgrims and of Jack's widow, who insead
of accompanying them is visiting her severely retarded daughter.
Reading the stream of consciousness of the multiple characters, we
learn about grievances, guilty secrets, sexual
betrayals, parental failures, lost children, resentments, and
disappointments.
The shifting narrators can make the story difficult to get one's
bearings in, and the working-class London vernacular might compound the
difficulty for Americans. Women might find it hard to relate to these
men whose emotions go largely unexpressed. But Last Orders is
worth sticking with. In the roundabout accumulation of details, Graham
Swift brings into full, sympathetic view several lives that didn't turn out especially well. He ends this
Booker Prize–winning novel on a life-affirming note, as his
characters fulfill their mission while finding forgiveness for one
another and self.
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