Last Bird Singing

In this gripping novel, bleak noir meets the mean streets of Splott, Cardiff. Tommy, a man in his 50s, has lost all hope for the future and cannot come to terms with the past. A "spare-room husband," he is living with—but estranged from—his wife Lillian and his son in the Welsh capital's seediest suburb, wondering where it all went wrong. Fighting alcoholism and unable to make amends with a dying friend, he lapses into a state of self-pity, reminiscing about when he was a popular footballer who scored on and off the pitch. His situation only worsens when Lillian leaves him for another man. Despite giving up drinking, the downward spiral continues as family members come to untimely ends. A catalog of despair and thwarted expectations, this novel is redeemed by its beautifully rendered prose.