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Let Go My Hand

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'A humane, humorous and ultimately extremely moving novel' Guardian
'A darkly comic, deeply moving and thoroughly modern father-son love story' Mail on Sunday
'Tremendously moving, fiercely intelligent and very, very funny' Paul Murray


Louis Lasker loves his family dearly – apart from when he doesn’t. There’s a lot of history. His father’s marriages, his mother’s death; one brother in exile, another in denial; everything said, everything unsaid. And now his father (the best of men, the worst of men) has taken a decision which will affect them all and has asked his three sons to join him on one final journey across Europe.

But Louis is far from sure that this trip is a good idea. His older half-brothers are wonderful, terrible, troublesome people. And they’re as suspicious as they are supportive . . . because the truth is that they’ve never forgiven their father for the damaging secrets and corrosive lies of his past. So how much does Louis love his dad – to death? Or can this flawed family’s bond prove powerful enough to keep a dying man alive?

Let Go My Hand is a darkly comic and deeply moving twenty-first-century love story between a son, his brothers and their father. Through these vividly realized characters, it asks elemental questions about how we love, how we live, and what really matters in the end. Frequently funny, sometimes profound, always beautifully written, this intimate and life-affirming novel shows the Booker-longlisted author of Self Help at his brilliant best, and confirms his reputation as one of Britain’s most intelligent and powerful writers.

Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Comedy

Critic reviews

An outstanding novel – tremendously moving, fiercely intelligent and very, very funny, even when it's breaking your heart (Paul Murray, author of Skippy Dies)
Essential reading for everyone who's ever been involved in a stepfamily - or any family. Not only is Docx frighteningly acute about human nature, he'll make you laugh and cry too. Just brilliant
A humane, humorous and ultimately extremely moving novel
Bursts into life . . . Docx's mastery of emotional verisimilitude had my eyes filmed with tears as I read the last few pages. I succumbed to the Laskers, to their unabashed seriousness and dirty jokes . . . a serious, big-hearted book
Laugh-out-loud humour in novels about terminal illness is more common than you’d expect, but the necessary blend with genuine pathos has rarely been better handled than in Edward Docx’s wonderfully readable new book . . . Apart from its finely judged tone, the book has a fierce momentum driven by the wavering determination of the three sons to carry things to the conclusion their father so devoutly wishes for
Poignancy and truthfulness of family life set against some scabrously funny one-liners and quippy conversation. Intelligent and accessible, it’s Docx’s finest achievement thus far
An incredibly touching story of the tender and indestructible bond that exists between a father and his three sons . . . It’s a curious thing when a book about death can prove so life-affirming. It’s something to be admired (John Boyne)
There are books that change your life and there are books that seem to be your life, Let Go My Hand manages to be both and more. Full of shining truths, this is a stylish and properly laugh-out-loud funny book that also had me choking back tears in public - a book that breathes pathos and joy into every page, a book that rubs wit and wisdom into the most tender wounds of love. I had to read many passages out loud to those that I care about the most in the world. If art is the holding in balance of the powers of love, sex and death, then this is a truly supreme work of art (Ian Kelly, author of Mr Foote's Other Leg)
A darkly comic, deeply moving and thoroughly modern father-son love story.
This is fiction with heft and moral nuance; a novel that gets its hands dirty in the soiled laundry basket of family secrets and resentments. As such, it’s [Docx's] most universal, moving and resonant work to date . . . Startlingly short on sentimentality, given its subject matter, and fluent and insightful . . . he deserves to win wider acclaim for this wise account of the throttled emotions of manhood, and of a family in terminal meltdown
A truly dazzling writer (Hanif Kureishi)
All stars
Most relevant
This book captured my emotions and imagination. At times very humorous at other uplifting but always bathed in humanity in ifs multifarious dramas.

The relationships between these 4 men.

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