Graham Swift is one of my favourite authors, and I’m interested that he’s chosen this very male world. Do we wish to believe that Amy and Ray will take up their love affair again, now that Jack is gone and Amy has decided to stop visiting June? Ray has his own way with words: when I started to read the opening chapter, which he narrates, I thought Swift hadn’t quite pitched it right because among the non-Standard English phrases come apt little descriptions, almost (but not quite) self-conscious. The prose is constructed with great care, the characters come to life and the various locations (a Bermondsey pub, Canterbury Cathedral, Margate) are vividly evoked. She never wanted it, she’s not coming today, and… we know there’s more to the story than marital resentment.

Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of eleven novels,two collections of short stories, including the highly acclaimed England and Other Stories, and of Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing.She knew what he was up to when he showed her Ray’s camper van and, apparently, was as up for it as he was in. He doesn’t so much know who he is as who he isn’t, and I’m wondering if this recurring worry is really at the heart of this novel. How is "what might have been" an issue in the lives of each of the characters in the novel, including the women?

This copy is the eighth issue of the first edition (with the impression line '9 8' on the verso of the title-page) in the second issue dustwrapper with the caption 'Winner of the 1996 Book Prize' on the upper panel and reviews on the lower panel. Together with his friends Lenny, a greengrocer, Vince, Jack’s adopted son, and Vic, a funeral director, they stop at various points along the way from Bermondsey to Margate as a way of saying farewell to their late friend. Schepisi met potential cast members and forged commitments with Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Bob Hoskins, and Ray Winstone. While I think there are many worthwhile novels to come out of that group of Granta YBNs / Booker establishment men (I will fight for Ishiguro any day of the week! We go there for enjoyment, yet at the same time it is an elemental zone where land and water meet and thus, with or without the presence of cliffs, it is implicitly precarious.It isn’t free-flowing, like stream of consciousness, because Swift clearly has a plan for how he slowly reveals the back-stories.