The Quarry, Iain Banks

[sharplittlteeth]

Finished reading Iain Banks's final novel The Quarry today.

18 year old Kit lives with his father Guy in a crumbling old country house. Kit is on the autism spectrum. Guy is dying of cancer. Guy invites his old university friends to stay for a weekend. In between drinking and taking drugs, the friends search the old house for an embarrassing video

Comments

[greylock]

If Banks had more time, if he wrote another draft, it might have been a fitting final novel.

Which would you prefer: crappy final novel pissing on his legacy, or a co-written novel revised by X?

I'm reading Gormanghast now, having just purchased Titus Awakes, so the question is in my head.

[sharplittlteeth]

That question depends entirely on the quality of the book. I'm okay with someone else posthumously co-writing a novel, provided it's a) done well and b) doesn't pretend to be the sole work of the dead author.

But really, this is one of those "would you rather eat live worms or dead spiders?" kind of questions.