Blake Morrison

Non-fiction Award Winner. Author's memoirs of his father told in a tender, funny and powerfully written observation.

What matters most: fidelity or art? Marriage or friendship? The wishes of the living or the talents of the dead?

Literary executor Matt Holmes finds himself considering these questions sooner than he thinks when his friend, the poet Robert Pope, dies unexpectedly. A trail of clues Rob has left within his archives leads Matt to a series of shocking discoveries that begins to unsettle everything he thought he knew about his friend. Should Matt conceal what he has found or share it? After all, it’s not just Rob’s reputation that could be transformed forever…

Ian and Em travel to East Anglia for a weekend by the sea. Their hosts Ollie and Daisy couldn't be more welcoming. But dangerous tensions quickly emerge in the stifling atmosphere of the cottage. Ominous revelations from Ian's past slowly intrude, and his rivalry with Ollie intensifies as they resurrect a seemingly forgotten bet made twenty years before...

Blake Morrison only really got to know his mother after she died. He knew she was a doctor trained in Ireland, but he didn't know she had been Agnes O'Shea, from a large Roman Catholic family. How Agnes became Kim, he discovered when he found papers and letters after her death.