Even the Dogs - Tapa dura

PRAISE FOR SO MANY WAYS TO BEGIN: 'An homage to ordinary people and ordinary things, to the parts of our lives that often go unspoken moving and honest' The Times 'This is a novel of character and atmosphere The relationship between David and Eleanor from youth to age, imperfect, deeply loving, underpins the whole a book about the search for greater meaning in the strange dance of chance' Independent 'McGregor's careful prose is sharpened by anticipation and expectation' Observer 'McGregor's meticulous syntax melts into a hot flood of words This is a decorous novel that rises on occasion to ardour An intimate tale with penetrating things to say about the wider history of twentieth-century Britain' Sunday Times

They break down the door at the end of December and carry his body away. On a still and frozen day between Christmas and New Year, a man's body is found lying in his ruined flat. Found, and then taken away, examined, investigated and cremated. As the state begins its detailed, dispassionate inquest, the man embarks on his last journey through a world he has not ventured into, alive, for years. In his wake, a series of fractured narratives emerge from squats and alleyways across the city: the short and stark story of the man, and of his friends who look on from the shadows, keeping vigil as the hours pass, paying their own particular homage. As they watch, their stories unfurl layer by layer; stories of lives fallen through the cracks, hopes flaring and dying, love overwhelmed by a stronger need, and the havoc wrought by drugs, distress and the disregard of the wider world. Intense, exhilarating, and shot through with hope and fury, Even the Dogs is an intimate exploration of life at the edges of society; littered with love, loss, despair and a glimpse of redemption.