Last Night On Earth

Description

Jay adores his small daughter, Bonnie, and nothing matters more to him than being a good father. But Bonnie's traumatic birth puts an unbearable strain on his marriage with Shauna and the couple eventually separate. Struggling to cope with the separation from 3-year-old Bonnie, Jay thinks constantly of his own mother who he hasn't seen since he fled Ireland a decade before. Resolved to move forward, Jay finds himself a flat-share with two eccentric Kenyan businessmen, snags a role working on a documentary about the Millennium Dome (through 'Dublin Darren', an old laboring contact), and is utterly rigid in his commitment to Bonnie time. Indeed, things might have even begun to look up were it not for the arrival of an old 'friend' from home. 'The Clappers' is six foot tall, four foot wide, built like several Guinness barrels strapped together, and is all, all woman. She means well, and she means to make everything right for Jay. But inevitably, she makes it wrong. A helter-skelter dash to Ireland results in some brutal revelations on behalf of Jay's mother, and an inevitable return to London culminates in a midnight epiphany in the shadow of Tony Blair, The Queen, and Auld Lang Syne. Can Jay be a good father to Bonnie? Or is it too late.

Promotion info

The brilliant new novel from the author of the much-loved The Fields: Last Night on Earth is a story of relationships, fatherhood, and minor miracles.

Author description

Kevin Maher was born and brought up in Dublin, moving to London in 1994 to begin a career in journalism. He wrote for the Guardian,the Observer and Time Out and was film editor of the Face until 2002, before joining The Times where for the last nine years he has been a feature writer, critic and columnist.