A story that centres on the carrying out of a dead man’s last wishes has the potential to be a sentimental and mawkish examination of friendship and family relationships. Thankfully the author of this story avoids the kind of formula emotional heart string tugging that he could have employed and instead Swift gives us an interesting study of those ties that bind and how fragile they are.
Set in Bermondsey and Margate, Swift has created believable characters from a working class South London setting. In the main all clichés are avoided with these characters although I did find the constant overuse of double negatives to indicate class and geographical location somewhat wearing. That said, however, where Swift succeeds, grammar notwithstanding, is by presenting us with well-rounded men and women that will be familiar to anyone from a working background; not just a London background either.
Swift’s incisive use of names; Jack, Vic, Ray, Vince, Joan, Amy cements the era in which these characters are from and flashbacks to wartime North Africa and post war trips to Margate allow all the characters to tell their individual and collective stories in a manner which compels the reader to follow their respective lives.
The book is well paced and manages to show how friendships, marriages and family loyalties can exist through habit as much as through love and respect. It also allows us to contemplate whether those relationships can also exist as endurance and as testament to a class and generation of people ‘doing the right thing’. This is explored in detail through the friendship built up between Jack and Ray and Ray’s silent love for Jack’s wife Amy.
The ambition of all those characters to better themselves through business, travel and a failed boxing career also shape this novel in a way in which the working class is shown as much meritocratic as salt of the Earth.
A highly enjoyable read with clever use of location, I just wish Swift had avoided the constant need to bash the reader over the head with the double negatives, they’re from Bermondsey, and we get it.
This review first appeared in The Claudian Review
https://baggingbookers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/last-orders-by-graham-swift.html
