The Quarry
Ratings7
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings7
Average rating3.3
Kit doesn't know who his mother is. What he does know, however, is that his father, Guy, is dying of cancer. Feeling his death is imminent, Guy gathers around him his oldest friends - or at least the friends with the most to lose by his death. Paul - the rising star in the Labour party who dreads the day a tape they all made at university might come to light; Alison and Robbie, corporate bunnies whose relationship is daily more fractious; Pris and Haze, once an item, now estranged, and finally Hol - friend, mentor, former lover and the only one who seemed to care. But what will happen to Kit when Guy is gone? And why isn't Kit's mother in the picture? As the friends reunite for Guy's last days, old jealousies, affairs and lies come to light as Kit watches on.
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Iain Banks's last novel is a book of echoes. The story is a familiar one to anyone who has read Banks before: a group of old friends gather one more time after years apart; there's a guilty secret and a mystery which must be uncovered; there's a loner protagonist who....well you get the picture. Its a familiar story but there's one twist...one of the characters is dying from cancer, the disease that killed Banks.
But this is no maudlin tale of loss. Banks started this book before he was diagnosed, so it can't necessarily be seen as a response to his cancer. But he did rewrite parts once he had been diagnosed, so you get some idea of the pain and rage he felt as it spews from the mouth of the dying man in this book.
As I said there are echoes here of earlier novels, The Wasp Factory, Garbadale, Stonemouth, even Whit. Kit is a teenager with Aspergers who doesn't know who his mother is. Guy, his father, is dying of cancer and they live in an old tumbledown house at the edge of a quarry. Into this come old friends, from Guy's time on a film making course back in the 90's. Together for one last time to say goodbyes. But there's a tape....what's on it and how that affects everyone's motives is the main thrust of the book, along with Kit's attempts to deal with his father's illness and to just “fit in”, which he does with help from one of the friends, Holly.
It's not a hard read. It's superbly written as always and Banks takes potshots at his usual targets: the Tory government; materialism; the lack of purpose in the current generation....but it never holds up the story.
For me it's not quite up there with Espedair Street, Complicity or even Stonemouth. But its a good book and its a crying shame that we have been robbed of any more.
