The Executor
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  • Published: 21 June 2018
  • ISBN: 9781473562783
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 14 min
  • Narrator: Adam James
  • RRP: $19.99
Categories:

The Executor

Formats & editions
EBook
15 Mar 2018
Audiobook
21 Jun 2018
Paperback
19 Mar 2019
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An elegant and unsettling novel about Matt, a man who becomes the literary executor of a friend’s estate, and the moral dilemmas he faces when he uncovers some unpublished, and potentially explosive, material

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Executor by Blake Morrison, read by Adam James.

What matters most: marriage or friendship? fidelity or art? the wishes of the living or the talents of the dead?

Matt Holmes finds himself considering these questions sooner than he thinks when his friend, the poet Robert Pope, dies unexpectedly. Rob had invited Matt to become his literary executor at their annual boozy lunch, pointing out that, at 60, he was likely to be around for some time yet. And Matt, having played devotee and apprentice to ‘the bow-tie poet’ for so long, hadn’t the heart (or the gumption) to deny him.

Now, after a frosty welcome from his widow, Matt sits at Rob’s rosewood desk and ponders his friend’s motives. He has never understood Rob’s conventional life with Jill, who seems to have no interest in her late husband’s work. But he soon finds himself in an ethical minefield, making shocking and scabrous discoveries that overturn everything he thought he knew about his friend. As Jill gets to work in the back garden, Matt is forced to weigh up the merits of art and truth. Should he conceal what he has found or share it? After all, it’s not just Rob’s reputation that could be transformed forever…

Bestselling novelist and poet Blake Morrison creates a biting portrait of competitive male friendship, sexual obsession and the fragile transactions of married life. The Executor innovatively interweaves poetry and prose to form a gripping literary detective story.
  • Published: 21 June 2018
  • ISBN: 9781473562783
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: Audio Download
  • Length: 8 hr 14 min
  • Narrator: Adam James
  • RRP: $19.99
Categories:

About the author

Blake Morrison

Born in Skipton, Yorkshire, Blake Morrison is the author of bestselling memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (winner of the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography and the Esquire Award for Non-Fiction) and Things My Mother Never Told Me ('the must read book of the year' - Tony Parsons),. He also wrote a study of the disturbing child murder, the Bulger case, As If. His acclaimed recent novels include South of the River and The Last Weekend. He is also a poet, critic, journalist and librettist. He lives in South London.

portrait photo of Blake Morrison

Also by Blake Morrison

Shingle Street
Stop What You're Doing And Read This!
The Last Weekend
South of the River
Things My Mother Never Told Me
See all

Praise for The Executor

A dark and compelling tale of what we leave behind us when we die

Alex Preston, The Guardian

Many pleasures ... Matt's domestic scenes confirm how good Morrison is on family life

James Walton, The Times

A clever, neatly constructed mystery -- and the poems are the best thing about it

Anthony Gardner, The Mail on Sunday

A novel of multi-level brilliance, which offers a smart, funny mystery built around ethical concerns over privacy and biography, while casting a beady eye on workplace politics and male midlife crises

Anthony Cummins, Daily Mail

Generously and skilfully written ... The unravelling of the novel’s moral perplexity is both ingenious and persuasive… A pleasing and very satisfying novel.

Allan Massie, The Scotsman

A cunning literary novel… Seriously probing about poetry, its origins and repercussions.

David Grylls, The Sunday Times

Entertaining, well written and acute ... Morrison has an observant eye

Piers Paul Read, The Tablet

Morrison's prose is easy, stylish ... it is often elegant in the way it depicts marriage, secrecy, and the fragile relationships between friends and spouses

Irish Times

Adept, attentive and occasionally beautiful ... When the poetry starts to break through, the book comes alive – reverberatingly, ravishingly so. Everything is illuminated... enter the revivifying excitements of adultery, incest, euthanasia; sex and lust and love; dreams, mortality and death... exquisitely metered, intimate and yet profound, glimmeringly intelligent, slyly sensual ... A worthwhile, interesting and impressive achievement

Edward Docx, The Guardian

A compelling story about the ties that bind us and the power of the written word.

Malcolm Forbes, Literary Review

A stylist and satirical take on Kindle-era publishing, and is also a timely interrogation on the pertinence of "rampant masculinity" in contemporary fiction.

Kitty Grady, Financial Times
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