Let go my hand - Softcover

This darkly funny yet poignant novel is about a dysfunctional family. Intelligently written with vivid characters, this uplifting story says something about acceptance, making amends and the strength of familial bonds * Wales Arts Review * Compelling, and full of pathos and interest * Sunday Times * Similarities between Let Go My Hand and Edward Docx's previous novel, Self Help, which was longlisted for the 2007 Man Booker prize . . . good at evoking the foetid atmosphere of resentment and overfamiliarity between these four men . . . consequences of past events are revealed in their combative clash of wits, the bitter humour, the conversations like interrogations . . . confronts a messy, fraught and painful subject and pins it out for our examination . . . there's something deeply cathartic in that * Times * Laugh-out-loud humour in novels about terminal illness is more common than you'd expect, but the necessary blend with genuine pathos has rarely been better handled than in Edward Docx's wonderfully readable new book . . . Apart from its finely judged tone, the book has a fierce momentum driven by the wavering determination of the three sons to carry things to the conclusion their father so devoutly wishes for * Daily Mail * Docx has a gift for assessing "the exact shape and weight of other people's inner selves, the architecture of their spirit" and even his most ancillary characters flare into being, vital and insistent * The New Yorker * Bursts into life . . . Docx's mastery of emotional verisimilitude had my eyes filmed with tears as I read the last few pages. I succumbed to the Laskers, to their unabashed seriousness and dirty jokes . . . a serious, big-hearted book * Literary Review * Smart writers are told that their work is clever; sensitive writers that theirs is poignant. I may have to reconsider my idea, however, having read Edward Docx's fourth novel, which combines the best of both worlds . . . an incredibly touching story of the tender and indestructible bond that exists between a father and his three sons . . . It's a curious thing when a book about death can prove so life-affirming. It's something to be admired -- John Boyne * Irish Times * Docx knows that what we want most from a novel are stories into which we can sink our teeth and our hearts -- Kamila Shamsie * Guardian * There are books that change your life and there are books that seem to be your life, Let Go My Hand manages to be both and more. Full of shining truths, this is a stylish and properly laugh-out-loud funny book that also had me choking back tears in public - a book that breathes pathos and joy into every page, a book that rubs wit and wisdom into the most tender wounds of love. I had to read many passages out loud to those that I care about the most in the world. If art is the holding in balance of the powers of love, sex and death, then this is a truly supreme work of art -- Ian Kelly, author of Mr Foote's Other Leg A truly dazzling writer -- Hanif Kureishi An outstanding novel - tremendously moving, fiercely intelligent and very, very funny, even when it's breaking your heart -- Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies

Louis Lasker loves his family dearly - apart from when he doesn't. There's a lot of history. His father's marriages, his mother's death; one brother in exile, another in denial; everything said, everything unsaid. And now his father (the best of men, the worst of men) has taken a decision which will affect them all and has asked his three sons to join him on one final journey across Europe. But Louis is far from sure that this trip is a good idea. His older half-brothers are wonderful, terrible, troublesome people. And they're as suspicious as they are supportive . . . because the truth is that they've never forgiven their father for the damaging secrets and corrosive lies of his past. So how much does Louis love his dad - to death? Or can this flawed family's bond prove powerful enough to keep a dying man alive? Let Go My Hand is a darkly comic and deeply moving twenty-first-century love story between a son, his brothers and their father. Through these vividly realized characters, it asks elemental questions about how we love, how we live, and what really matters in the end. Frequently funny, sometimes profound, always beautifully written, this intimate and life-affirming novel shows the Booker-longlisted author of Self Help at his brilliant best, and confirms his reputation as one of Britain's most intelligent and powerful writers.