Last Days in Cleaver Square
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
'Let there be no more of this clucking and wheedling. Oh Pa, are you sure? Or: Oh Francis, is this really a good idea? Let me be clear. I am always sure, and it is always a good idea.'
An old man is sleeping fitfully. It's too hot. The air is thick with Spanish Jasmine floating in from his overgrown garden. And he's not sure whether he'll be woken by General Franco sitting on the end of his bed.
It's 1975 and Francis McNulty is nearing the end of his life but feeling far from peaceful. A veteran of the Spanish Civil War, he is tormented by grief and guilt about a brief, terrible act of betrayal from that time; and he's started seeing his old nemesis on the street, in the garden and now in his bedroom. Neither he nor his daughter Gillian, who lives with him in Cleaver square, 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.
'This is a wonderful, thrilling novel . . . in Last Days in Cleaver Square McGrath has broken through to new depths of insight and emotion.' JOHN BANVILLE
'McGrath is a conjuror of fine detail . . . a master of the unreliable narrator - the best in the business.' JOHN SELF
'[W]onderfully sinister ... a delight ... you are in for a thrilling ride.' SPECTATOR on The Wardrobe Mistress
© Patrick McGrath 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
'Let there be no more of this clucking and wheedling. Oh Pa, are you sure? Or: Oh Francis, is this really a good idea? Let me be clear. I am always sure, and it is always a good idea.'
An old man is sleeping fitfully. It's too hot. The air is thick with Spanish Jasmine floating in from his overgrown garden. And he's not sure whether he'll be woken by General Franco sitting on the end of his bed.
It's 1975 and Francis McNulty is nearing the end of his life but feeling far from peaceful. A veteran of the Spanish Civil War, he is tormented by grief and guilt about a brief, terrible act of betrayal from that time; and he's started seeing his old nemesis on the street, in the garden and now in his bedroom. Neither he nor his daughter Gillian, who lives with him in Cleaver square, 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.
'This is a wonderful, thrilling novel . . . in Last Days in Cleaver Square McGrath has broken through to new depths of insight and emotion.' JOHN BANVILLE
'McGrath is a conjuror of fine detail . . . a master of the unreliable narrator - the best in the business.' JOHN SELF
'[W]onderfully sinister ... a delight ... you are in for a thrilling ride.' SPECTATOR on The Wardrobe Mistress
© Patrick McGrath 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
Reviews
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
