Last Orders (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Graham Swift
- First Published: 1996
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: April 2, 1990, with numerous flashbacks over the last three generations
- Setting: London and the county of Kent, England
- Principal Characters: Jack Dodds, Amy Dodds, June Dodds, Vince Dodds, Mandy Dodds, Kathy Dodds, Ray Johnson, Carol Johnson, Sue Johnson, Lenny Tate, Joan Tate, Sally Tate, Vic Tucker, Bernie Skinner
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Parents and children, Marriage, Friendship, England or English people, Drinking or drunkenness, Funeral rites or ceremonies, Life and death, Pilgrims or pilgrimages
- Locales: London, England, Kent, England
At first glance, Graham Swift’s Booker Award-winning Last Orders seems a rather slight novel built around a plot gimmick: “four blokes on a special delivery.” Their mission—to deliver Jack Dodds’s ashes approximately seventy-five miles from London to Margate pier for disposal—is interrupted by “two detours, one fight, a piss-up and a near-wetting.” The story sounds like good British fun, maybe material for a light made-for-television film, as the characters and setting tend to suggest. The characters are small shopkeepers from Bermondsey, a section of Southwark...
[The entire page is 1908 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
See Also
