This really shouldn't be so much fun. Iain Banks' last novel, on the shelves in the weeks after he died of cancer on June 9, is about, yes, a guy dying of cancer. And at a relatively young age, like the author, which should make it all the worse. That The Quarry is engaging and even amusing until the prosaic and inevitable end is a measure of Banks' skill, and why he will be missed.
The Quarry By Iain Banks 326pp Little, Brown paperback 474 baht at Kinokuniya
The story is told from the point of view of Kit, an intelligent but emotionally stunted 18-year-old man-child who has an unspecified disorder somewhere near the mild end of the autism spectrum. His father, Guy, is the one dying, ranting against the "unwilled suicide" of a disease he clearly hates and swears ineffectually at. The action is distilled into a weekend as six friends from their university days gather at Guy's equally decrepit country home, where they had lived together 20 years earlier.
All the ingredients point to a miserable read: eight people gathered in a country house for a weekend for a pre-emptive farewell, rummaging through boxes in search of a sex tape, pouring wine and smoking joints and bitching about politics. None of the characters _ a would-be politician, a film critic, corporate sellouts and a drug addict among them _ is particularly likeable. And this is a novel where the narrator is forced to check his father's excrement for blood and makes an awkward joke about Faecesbook.
Despite all this, for the most part The Quarry is riveting. Part of the fascination is wondering what awful thing Guy will say next, what new form of betrayal the supposed friends can inflict on each other and what imaginative insults can be concocted. ("Scrotum-faced, pillous-featured fartle-butt" and "gangrenously, tripe-bollocked waste of flatulence" are two Kit has shared in the online world.)
There is, as Guy says, "hot and cold running sarcasm in every f***ing room". If you like your humour black, you've come to the right place.
But the most important element of The Quarry's success is that it's truly about life. Twisted, bleak and messed up as life can be, Guy wants nothing else but to make the most of it even as his lungs threaten to strangle him. He has accomplices willing to roll him joints and carry his wheelchair up narrow, unlit staircases to relive his youth.
The group's conversations tap into the zeitgeist, whether it's the global financial crisis, the Jimmy Savile scandal or describing The Hobbit as "Peter Jackson's Phantom Menace". Guy has fears for the future of humanity, has made plans for his son, and is heavily emotionally invested in the world he is about to depart.
Thoughts of Guy's impending death are always present _ "wallowing is all I've got left" _ and they often come to the forefront with an awkward comment from his friends. Guy's default response is to be brasher, cruder and more outrageous than his friends _ or perhaps just more honest.
"Seems to be a very embarrassing thing, even quite distressing and upsetting for people, being around somebody dying, coming to visit them. Specially when they can practically see an old mucker shrivelling away in front of them, like he's letting the side down by doing something none of us is supposed to do for another 40 years or whatever, and they hear what sounds like little individual tumours rattling around in their chest every time they cough, like nutty f***ing slack."
The Quarry is also about life's little disappointments and the middle-aged frustration of not living up to the potential displayed in youth. The friends have grown up and apart, and haven't seemed to have seen anything through to the end. With the house set for destruction _ the quarry of the title will take over the land once Guy dies _ they create a bonfire of unwanted worldly goods, and even this fails to burn properly.
There is nothing glamorous or noble about Guy and his will to live; it is almost as though Banks is repudiating such books as My Sister's Keeper and The Dog Lived (And So Will I), which somehow found its way to the top of The New York Times bestseller list. The Quarry is more in the vein of Blake Morrison's memoir And When Did You Last See Your Father? or Christopher Hitchens' essay collection Mortality _ the former written from the point of view of a son grappling with his father's illness, the latter written by a man who knew full well he was dying.
Further comparisons could be made, but the essential difference is Banks has left behind a work of fiction. Much of it rings true _ anyone who has helped a frail cancer patient stand to pee or tried to move them in bed will recognise the awkwardness and frustration depicted here _ but there is no way to tell how much of this is Banks' story.
Perhaps Guy is Banks' mouthpiece, venting the frustrations felt in his dying months; perhaps there is more imagination at work here than meets the eye.
In an introduction to a recent edition of his breakthrough 1984 novel The Wasp Factory, Banks spurned the idea authors should only write what they know. Without a willingness to explore ideas and territories unknown to him, Banks would never have produced that celebrated debut, let alone his science-fiction works.
Banks said more than once he would prefer to write pure sci-fi, but that his more down-to-earth novels supported that financially. There are flashes of his passion in The Quarry, but mostly it's a personal and human drama with a rich, dark comic streak.
Banks has left not with a bang or a whimper, but a laugh designed to stop you from crying.
