The Last Good Funeral of the Year

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Pub Date 15 Mar 2022 | Archive Date 31 May 2022
House of Anansi Press Inc. | House of Anansi Press

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Description

From Ed O’Loughlin, author of Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Minds of Winter, a pensive and poignant recollection of love, loss, marriage, and the life events that have shaped his identity.


Soon, the lockdown would start. People would die alone, without any proper ceremony. Charlotte’s death would be washed away, the first drop in a downpour. Nobody knew it then, but hers would be the last good funeral of the year. 


It was February 2020 when Ed O’Loughlin unexpectedly heard that Charlotte, a friend from the old days, had just died young and before her time. He realized that he was being led to reappraise his life, his family, and his career as a foreign correspondent and novelist in a new, colder light.


This search for meaning becomes the driving theme of O’Loughlin’s year of confinement. The result is a haunting examination of the author’s early life and love, the journalists and photographers with whom he covered wars in Africa and the Middle East, the suicide of his brother, his new work as an author, a family home on the edge of a graveyard, and the mysteries of memory, aging, and loss. He was suddenly faced with facts that he had been ignoring, that he was getting old, that he wasn’t what he used to be, that his imagination, always over-active, had at some point reversed its direction, switching production from dreams to regrets. 


Moving, funny, and searingly honest, The Last Good Funeral of the Year takes the reader on a circular journey from present to past and back to the present: “Could any true story end any other way?”

From Ed O’Loughlin, author of Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Minds of Winter, a pensive and poignant recollection of love, loss, marriage, and the life events that have shaped his identity.


Soon...


Advance Praise

PRAISE FOR ED O’LOUGHLIN AND THE LAST GOOD FUNERAL OF THE YEAR



“Ed O’Loughlin is a natural storyteller, a good one, and he invites the reader right alongside in his honest search for meaning through reminiscence, memory, and adventure. With precision and expertise, he probes past and present chapters of his life, all the while imparting his own brand of wisdom and humour. A great pleasure to read!” — Frances Itani, author of Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Tell



“War correspondent, father, husband, son, friend, and grieving brother — Ed O’Loughlin has given us a powerful and unusual memoir. At times heartbreaking and often laugh-aloud funny, The Last Good Funeral is set to be among the very best of books for 2022.” — Christine Dwyer Hickey, author of Walter Scott Prize winner The Narrow Land


 


“The past is a revenant that haunts the present in this exquisite and startling memoir by Ed O’Loughlin. The Last Good Funeral of the Year is a witty, engaging, heartbreaking, and beautifully wrought tour through the workings of memory, all unearthed during the world’s great period of lockdown stillness. The stories and their people will remain with you long after finishing this book.” — Emily Urquhart, author of The Age of Creativity



“The Last Good Funeral of the Year is intelligent, funny, profound, painfully honest, beautifully written, and powerfully moving. Ed O’Loughlin is a writer who does brilliantly everything he turns his hand to; it’s no surprise to find that his memoir is so unforgettably good.” — Kevin Power, author of White City

PRAISE FOR ED O’LOUGHLIN AND THE LAST GOOD FUNERAL OF THE YEAR



“Ed O’Loughlin is a natural storyteller, a good one, and he invites the reader right alongside in his honest search for meaning through...


Available Editions

EDITION Paperback
ISBN 9781487010607
PRICE CA$22.99 (CAD)

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