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  • Published: 1 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099542346
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $22.99

The Last Weekend




Four friends, one weekend, and a bet that changes everyone's lives...

Set over a long weekend in East Anglia, this is the chilling story of a rivalrous friendship - as told with deceptive casualness by the narrator, Ian. It opens with a surprise phone call from an old university friend, inviting Ian and his wife, Em, for a few days by the sea. Their hosts, Ollie and Daisy, are a golden couple, and the scene is set for sunlit relaxation.

But dangerous tensions quickly emerge, and in the stifling atmosphere of a remote cottage in the hottest days of summer, Ollie and Ian resurrect a bet made twenty years before. Each day becomes a series of challenges for higher and higher stakes, setting in train actions that will have irreversible consequences.

  • Published: 1 July 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099542346
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $22.99

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.

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Praise for The Last Weekend

This is a seriously good novel and it deserves to overtake a few more loudly trumpeted false favourites in the popularity and prize stakes

The Lady

A compelling psychological thriller that, in parts, will cause you to actually flinch

Ben Felsenberg, Metro

Delightfully twisted

David Mills, Esquire

This is one achievement among several for Blake Morrison, who has written a novel that is at once artful and naturalistic, restrained and yet suggestive, and faithful to a perspective from which the readers wants to recoil

Stephen Abell, Times Literary Supplement

The story is beautifully crafted, astutely observed and peopled with believable characters

David Robson, Sunday Telegraph

Morrison handles the elements of his novel with impeccable control

Stephanie Merritt, Observer

The fascination is horrible, the prose addictive, the situation magnificently claustrophobic, the denouement shocking

Glasgow Herald

Morrison has created far more than a sinister take on the country-house novel... This is a suspenseful thriller, but more importantly it succeeds as an exceedingly clever investigation into the strangeness of lies

Christian House, Independent on Sunday

The fascination is horrible, the prose addictive, the situation magnificently claustrophobic, the denouement shocking

Alan Taylor, Herald

An insidiously gripping tale

Country Life

Gripping...a masterpiece of pacing and revelation

Irish Times

A compelling thriller

Metro

A terrific thriller, a page-turner of impressive literary skill

Sunday Business Post

It is the assuredness of Morrison's portrayal of Ian's descent which makes The Last Weekend compelling - and lifts a familiar...story skilfully above the commonplace

Matthew Dennison, The Independent

His truly sensational latest novel, which places him at the forefront of British novelists writing today

Sunday Express

Creepy and compelling, but also often extremely funny. Blake Morrison has inhabited the world of a deeply flawed character with unforgettable results

Mark Bostridge, Financial Times

Tautly written and tightly structured, this is a novel that explores jealousy, rivalry, deceit and manipulation

Mail on Sunday

Warner navigates the comic, the philosophical and the socially acute like no other writer we have

Independent

Played refreshingly uncliched games with the device of the unreliable narrator

Jonathan Coe, Daily Telegraph, Christmas round up

Blake Morrison's examination of the dark heart of male rivalry makes foe a gripping read

Aminatta Forna, Sunday Telegraph, Christmas round up

Pacy and gripping...wonderfully atmospheric

Good Book Guide

Morrison's compelling study of male competitiveness offers a discomforting account of the amoral excuses and self-deception of the compulsive gambler: "I don't have a problem. I could stop tomorrow"; "gambling is the basis of our whole economy". You reckon you could put it down at any point - though you'd be kidding yourself

Alfred Hickling, Guardian

The Bank Holiday weekend from hell is the subject of Blake Morrison's entertaining new novel - a dark little tale about middle-class rivalry and midsummer meltdown. With an ear attuned to metropolitan pretension - modern parenting skills are sent up with gusto - Morrison succeeds in weaving a murderous melodrama that is grounded in the most recognizable of human impulses and desires

Emma Hagestadt, Independent

A tense chamber piece about a twisted friendship...the author's skilful choreography of unsympathetic characters and a menacing tone make for a sharply intelligent novel that is both unnerving and enjoyable

Financial Times

The Last Weekend isn't really a thriller though its well-paced, tight and gripping narrative has you reaching for the same adjectives that you would use to describe one

Paul Dunn, The Times

For those holidaying with old friends…the book tells the chilling story ofa rivalrousfriendship…leaving Alex Clark to conclude that Morrison "keeps the reader constantly intrigued

Guardian