The Quarry, Iain M. Banks
The Quarry, Iain M. Banks
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The Quarry

Author: Iain M. Banks

Narrator: Peter Kenny

Unabridged: 9 hr 15 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Redhook

Published: 06/25/2013


Synopsis

Eighteen-year-old Kit is weird: big, strange, odd, socially disabled, on a spectrum that stretches from "highly gifted" at one end, to "nutter" at the other. At least Kit knows who his father is; he and Guy live together in a decaying country house on the unstable brink of a vast quarry. His mother's identity is another matter. Now, though, his father's dying, and old friends are gathering for one last time.

"Uncle" Paul's a media lawyer now; Rob and Ali are upwardly mobile corporate bunnies; pretty, hopeful Pris is a single mother; Haze is still living up to his drug-inspired name twenty years on; and fierce, protective Hol is a gifted if acerbic critic. As young film students they lived at Willoughtree House with Guy, and they've all come back because they want something. Kit, too, has his own ulterior motives. Before his father dies he wants to know who his mother is, and what's on the mysterious tape they're all looking for. But most of all he wants to stop time and keep his father alive.

Fast-paced, gripping and savagely funny, The Quarry is a virtuoso performance whose soaring riffs on the inexhaustible marvel of human perception and rage against the dying of the light will stand among Iain Banks' greatest work.


About Iain M. Banks

Iain Banks (1954-2013) came to widespread and controversial public notice with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory, in 1984. Consider Phlebas, his first science fiction novel, was published under the name Iain M. Banks in 1987 and began his celebrated ten-book Culture series. He is acclaimed as one of the most powerful, innovative and exciting writers of his generation.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Baba on July 12, 2021

Kit is an 18 year-old genius of sorts, he's also pretty pedantic, ultra-self analytical, as he has some sort of unnamed Asperger's like condition; and his dad, Guy, is dying as he wages a long, seemingly losing fight against cancer. Guy has never revealed to Kit who his mother was, or is! Knowing th......more

Goodreads review by Ann on June 25, 2013

"I hate the thought of the world and all the people in it just going merrily on without me after I'm gone. How fucking dare they?" So speaks Guy, the character in the centre of Banks' last novel, who is dying of cancer. According to his last interview in the Guardian, Banks discovered that he was dyi......more

Goodreads review by Barry on July 17, 2019

One of his best 'serious' novels (as opposed to Sci-Fi, which I love even more) sadly it was his last , I think, taken from us at the age of 59 after losing his battle with cancer. Again he has a book that successfully delves into the minds and behaviours of a range of central characters. A masterpi......more

Goodreads review by Liviu on July 23, 2014

last Iain Banks novel; while not really a fan of his "mainstream" novels, this one is a must read for obvious reasons and starts actually quite engaging and interesting and promises a lot a little bit to my surprise I found myself getting back to The Quarry and finally reading it twice as it is a see......more

Goodreads review by Steven on July 21, 2013

This was my first Banks encounter and I was expecting a lot and had no knowledge of any of this previous work. It reminded me of one of those 1950s American plays of great intensity by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller or Eugene O'Neill - a family gathers in one room and over the space of two hours......more


Quotes

"A goodbye letter to the world and all of its wonder and terror."—Cory Doctorow, boingboing.net

"Some of the funniest writing Banks has ever produced. A writer who has the rare gift of being infallibly entertaining."—The Telegraph

"It's the testimony of a writer refusing to go quietly, Iain Banks has got the last word."—The Sunday Times

"The Quarry is a satisfying end to a fine writing career."—Sunday Express

"The Quarry is an honorable finale to an exciting career."—The Guardian

"This is a novel that's perched at the dangerous edge of things, looking down. It's an urgent novel and an important one."—The Observer

"Iain Banks's gift to us over nearly 30 books, a brilliant, piercing depiction of just how funny, stupid, pointless, infuriating, glorious, mind-bending, and inane life can be. And that's why he's been a constant inspiration to me as a novelist and a human being."—Independent on Sunday

"A powerful and affecting book. The Quarry reaches a pitch of emotion that only a reader made of granite could read without tears."—Sunday Herald

"The Quarry is...a novel shot through with Banks's trademark humor, political engagement, and hope."—The Times, Book of the Week

"In Banks we had a novelist of supreme subtlety and one who...had an irrepressible sense of fun, that is evident on every page of The Quarry."—The Independent