Blake Morrison
The award-winning poet and author of And When Did You Last See Your Father? reveals his new novel, The Last Weekend.
Blake Morrison’s best-known works are probably his two memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? and Things My Mother Never Told Me. Despite his numerous appointments, he maintains a low-key presence, so here’s a bit more about him if he has yet to crop up on your radar...
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Born in Skipton, North Yorkshire in 1950, Morrison was educated at the local grammar school before going on to Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. He worked for the Times Literary Supplement between 1978 and 1981 and was then literary editor for both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995.
His non-fiction books include As If (1997), about the trial of the two young boys convicted of killing the toddler James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, and Too True (1998), a collection of essays and stories. His poetry includes the collections Dark Glasses (1984), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, and The Ballad of the Yorkshire Ripper (and Other Poems) (1987). His memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), an acclaimed, moving account of his father's life and death, won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and the Esquire/Volvo/Waterstone's Non-Fiction Book Award and was made into a film in 2007, starring Colin Firth. A second memoir about his mother, Things My Mother Never Told Me, was published in 2002. His critical work includes editing (with Andrew Motion) The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry (1982), and he has also written a number of plays, screenplays, and a book for children. His latest publication, a novel entitled The Last Weekend, has just been released.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. Since 2003, he has also been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.
The Last Weekend
Set over a long weekend in East Anglia, Blake Morrison's new novel 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. In taut, lucid prose, with flashes of wit and moments of troubling uncertainty, Blake Morrison perfectly conveys the stifling atmosphere of a remote cottage in the hottest days of summer. Ominous revelations from Ian's past slowly intrude. And his rivalry with Ollie intensifies as they resurrect a seemingly forgotten 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. The Last Weekend is a deftly crafted page-turner, where little can be taken for granted and nothing is quite as it seems. It offers a dark, haunting tale of friendship, sexual passion and jealousy - and confirms Blake Morrison's reputation as one of Britain's most talented writers.
Read more about The Last Weekend at Lovereading.co.uk
