Iain Banks' death two weeks ago from cancer ended one of the most enjoyable literary careers of recent times.
The Quarry is both a poignant farewell - and typical Banks: the main protagonist, a wastrel called Guy, is himself dying of cancer. The plot rushes through a hallucinatory weekend, which Guy spends at home in rural Scotland, along with some of his closest friends. The story is narrated by Guy's son, Kit, who views his father's strengths and weaknesses through the prism of Asperger syndrome. Kit's own limitations mean he is both bored and baffled by the antics of his increasingly desperate dad and friends. Banks was good at dysfunctional eccentrics and here the black comedy feels more than usually bleak. Guy's friends are all failures of one sort or another, expending their energy in mutual sniping. When Guy is not denying his fate, he ponders a life half-lived. Banks had bemoaned the fact that his last book was "minor". He had a point, but even Banks in the minor key is superior to many of his "major" contemporaries.
