O YE of little faith. For the second year in a row, the Booker judges got it right. Graham Swift's strongly fancied and favourably reviewed novel, Last Orders, has won this year's Booker Prize.
Following the success of Pat Barker's The Ghost Road which, by winning last year, appeared to herald the fact there was life yet in the oft-disputed English novel, Swift has not only vindicated the prize itself and English fiction in general, but he has at last shaken off the ghost of one of his own previous novels, Waterland.
He took the £20,000 prize from a strong shortlist which included worthy challengers in third-time Booker contender Margaret Atwood and her novel, Alias Grace, based on an infamous 19th-century double murder mystery which has preoccupied Canadians for generations, and Beryl Bainbridge's Every Man For Himself a sharp moral comedy acted out against the larger human disaster caused by the sinking of the Titanic.
Irish poet, academic and critic, Seamus Deane, was shortlisted for his haunting, episodic first novel, Reading in the Dark. Although the bookies' outsider, Deane's book, praised by the chairman of the panel, Carmen Callil, for its "beautiful simplicity", certainly had the support of the Booker's "studio panel", which included poet Tom Paulin, critic Germaine Greer and novelist Michael Dibdin. While the quality of the language of this book is indisputable, reservations have been voiced about its being more memoir than novel. Fiction has traditionally been strongly linked with autobiography, but the mood of this work is closer to formal memoir than autobiographical fiction. This may have proved the deciding factor.
Also short-listed was Indian writer Rohinton Mistry, with a flawed yet impressive saga about modern India, representing, in A Fine Balance, comedy at its grimmest. It is his second novel and his second Booker short-listing.
The sixth contender was Scotsborn Sheana Mackay for The Orchard on Fire, a grim, heavy-handed tale about childhood friendship in 1950s England. With its faints echoes of L.P. Hartley and H.E. Bates, it was the only novel on the list lacking any obvious claims to the prize.
Swift's win is a popular one. Short-listed for the 1983 Booker Prize, Waterland, recognised as one of Britain's finest poet-war novels, lost out to J.M. Coetzee's compelling elegy, Life and Times of Michael K. Since then, Swift - a consistently interesting novelist fascinated by historical accidentalism and one who has always asked questions rather than provided empty answers has appeared to have been trapped in an artistic cul de sac. Out of this odd (1988) was a major disappointment and marks the only time Swift's feel for spoken language failed him.
His years in the doldrums continued with the seriously underrated Ever After (1992), which explored Darwinian notions of truth and faith. Last Orders tells the story of three old pals setting off to fulfil the last wishes of their friend, Jack Dodds, a London butcher who wanted his ashes cast off Margate Pier. The trio are driven down the Kent coast by Jack's abrasive adopted son Vince, a car dealer who never wanted to work in the family business.
Swift's triumph is also one for the hypnotic power of vernacular speech in its ability to create honest lasting art out of life itself. All of the characters speak the same language: an authentic,. working-class south-east London English resounding with a harsh poetry uniquely its own. His use of these natural speech rhythms throughout this multi-voiced narrative is remarkable. It successfully sustains its complex simplicity through a series of individual monologues spoken by Ray, the central narrator, with contributions from Vie and Lenny as well as some comments from Jack's widow, Amy, and Vince, the disgruntled adopted son.
Last Orders, with its cast of sad and angry individuals, is extraordinarily moving without being sentimental. Jack's death is the cue which stimulates the others to revisit their own lives; their war experiences, their memories, their relationships and their secrets.
Published last January, Last Orders immediately emerged as a potential winner and lasted the course.
Accepting the prize at the gala dinner in London's Guildhall, Swift a quiet Londoner, thanked his readers, stressing that novels are not written for grand occasions but rather for "the intimate silence" between the writer and the reader.
