The Quarry (Iain Banks novel)

The Quarry

Author	Iain Banks
Country	Scotland
Language	English
Publisher	Little, Brown
Publication date	2013
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	336 pp
ISBN	978-1-4087-0394-6

The Quarry is Iain Banks' final novel, which was published posthumously in late June 2013. It deals with an autistic youth, Kit, and his father, Guy, a misanthrope who is dying of cancer.^[1] The cover synopsis is as follows:

Kit doesn’t know who his mother is. What he does know, however, is that his father, Guy, is dying of cancer. Feeling his death is imminent, Guy gathers around him his oldest friends – or at least the friends with the most to lose by his death. Paul – the rising star in the Labour party who dreads the day a tape they all made at university might come to light; Alison and Robbie, corporate bunnies whose relationship is daily more fractious; Pris and Haze, once an item, now estranged, and finally Hol – friend, mentor, former lover and the only one who seemed to care. But what will happen to Kit when Guy is gone? And why isn’t Kit’s mother in the picture? As the friends reunite for Guy’s last days, old jealousies, affairs and lies come to light as Kit watches on.

The author, who died in early June 2013, was in the advanced phases of terminal gall bladder cancer at the time the book was being prepared for publication, although he did not discover this until the book was almost finished.^[2] The novel is said to draw from Banks' own experiences on this topic.^[3] The dates of publication of The Quarry were brought forward at Banks' request,^[2] and were 20 June 2013 in the UK^[4] and 25 June 2013 in the US.^[5][6] The Scotsman reviewer Hannah McGill, reflecting on Banks' condition at the time of writing, called it "a state-of-the-self book, a meaning-of-life book".^[7]

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