The old romantic - Louise Dean

Obsessed with death and planning his own funeral, Ken is determined to die in the bosom of his family. But it isn't that easy; his family don't want to know him.

His oldest son Nick left home over twenty years ago and reinvented himself. At forty, he has returned home to Kent, and found happiness with his girlfriend Astrid and her twelve-year-old daughter Laura, and he doesn't want the old man to spoil things. He's come a long way; he's a professional, a country gent, a family man.

But the past is coming back for Nick and it won't let him be.

In this dark comedy, in prose that is funny and moving, Louise Dean sharpens her scalpel again to write about the changing generations, about class and ageing and death too, about England now and the England we have left behind.