A brilliant, darkly hilarious and very moving novel about a dysfunctional family and their final chance to fix things.
Edward Docx was born in 1972. His previous novels are The Calligrapher, Self Help and The Devil's Garden. He lives and works in London.
An outstanding novel – tremendously moving, fiercely intelligent
and very, very funny, even when it's breaking your heart
*Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies*
A truly dazzling writer
*Hanif Kureishi*
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*
Docx knows that what we want most from a novel are stories into
which we can sink our teeth and our hearts
*Guardian*
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
*Irish Times*
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*
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*
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*
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*
Compelling, and full of pathos and interest
*Sunday Times*
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*
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