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.

‘Last Orders confirms his reputation as one of the great contemporary chroniclers of landscape and memory’ Observer

‘His finest book to date; emotionally charged and technically superb’ Times Literary Supplement

‘Inspired . . . His finest novel yet’ Guardian

‘A triumph’ Sunday Times

‘Tragic, comic and wonderfully compassionate’ Daily Mail

Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of many acclaimed novels, two collections of short stories (England and Other Stories, and Learning to Swim and Other Stories) and Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. With Waterland he won the Guardian Fiction Prize (1983), and with Last Orders the Booker Prize (1996). Both novels have since been made into films. Graham Swift's work has appeared in over thirty languages.