SHORTLISTED FOR THE AUTHORS' CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE McKITTERICK PRIZE

Dr James Darke has expelled himself from the world. He writes compulsively in his 'coming of old age' journal; he eats little, drinks and smokes a lot; he tries to console himself with the wisdom of the great thinkers and poets, yet finds nothing but disappointment. But cracks of light start to appear in his carefully managed darkness - the tender, bruised filaments of love for his daughter and grandson.

With scalding prose, ruthless intelligence and an unforgettably vivid protagonist, Darke confronts some of humanity's greatest and most uncomfortable questions about how we choose to live, and to die.

"An original and bleakly funny portrait of grief" - * Economist *

"Surprising . . . with a warmth that is genuinely and unexpectedly moving" - * Guardian *

"Makes for dark, thrilling reading . . . In James Darke, Gekoski has created a powerful, raging voice" - * Spectator *

"Rick Gekoski's impressive debut novel . . . Darke is both a tender and hard-hitting examination of grief and the slow, singular healing process . . . A brilliantly vivid creation . . . life-affirming and life-shattering" - * The Herald *

"Stuffed with more wisdom, bile, wit and tenderness than many writers create in a lifetime. In James Darke we have a hero as troubled and eternal as King Lear . . . And in Rick Gekoski we have a late-flowering genius of a novelist who proves it's never too late to start a glittering career in fiction" - * The Times *

"An immensely enjoyable elegy . . . done with precision and patience" - * The Scotsman *

"Debut delight . . . Just how this gleefully conjured misanthrope came to wall himself off from the world is the mystery at the heart of a singular first novel that evolves into a moving meditation on loss and redemption" - * Mail on Sunday *