If you've read any of Patrick McGrath's work before you'll be aware and expect his book to deal with madness, but madness takes many forms. While in books with evocative titles like Asylum, Trauma and Dr. Haggard's Disease is often related to acts of madness in fictional doctors and damaged artists in Gothic asylums, McGrath's writing has extended its range to take in wider dysfunction in American society, as well as the trauma inflicted by historical events, from 9/11 in Ghost Town to the American Revolution years of Martha Peake. What greater collective social madness can there be then than a country involved in a civil war?

Last Days in Cleaver Square has quite a few of McGrath's familiar elements, not least of which is a narrator who appears to be gradually losing his mind, which can only be a good thing for fans of his deliciously delirious fiction, and it is indeed again an artist who is afflicted with the onset of madness here. Francis McNulty is an aging poet who in his youthful idealism to destroy fascism joined the International Brigade in the i930s to fight the Falangists during the Spanish Civil War. Now in his dilapidated London home, his ability to write good poetry waning, he is visited by the ghostly apparition of Generalísimo Franco.

In 1975 however the monster is not yet dead, but he is 84 and very ill with a number of serious health conditions. So why the appearance of the "blackened, viscous, diminished, formless excrescence" of a not yet dead Spanish dictator? Evidently it must be connected to the horrific experiences of Francis during those troubled war years when he was in Madrid, but there are hints that the old Georgian house in Cleaver Square could be haunted by other ghosts in Francis's past. The vividness and realness of the nighttime visitations could also be related to his artistic temperament, and in a Patrick McGrath book, you can imagine that it must be so. The question is where is this all going to lead?

Well, one thing for sure is that you can't entirely trust the first-person narrator in a Patrick McGrath book, particularly one who is suffering from what appears to be mental illness or the onset of dementia. All we have to go on is what Francis tells us, and we aren't quite sure how everyone is reacting to his visions, other than his own perception of it, which is nonetheless a fascinating perspective. Gradually, reluctantly, on the insistence of a journalist, Francis reveals some of his experiences in Spain, his struggles as an artist, and - again not untypical for a McGrath novel - issues of a difficult family background with Oedipal issues and sexual hang-ups. Combine dark secrets, unspoken atrocities and an expanding sense of guilt with old age and a fear of being left behind by the world, and we're heading for trouble.

McGrath handles this Freudian psychodrama in his customary way, with elegant prose of beautiful clarity and precision which only makes occasional observations of family secrets and inclinations of sexual desire made in passing seem all the more eccentric and portentous. This all seems like it is heading for familiar McGrath territory of mental breakdown heading into Gothic horror, but the author finds an unexpected element of humour in all the darkness and - since we all know that Franco does indeed die in 1975 - even a resolution and sense of closure that few of his other tormented protagonists enjoy. The idea that even the worst horrors eventually come to an end is a most welcome sentiment at the present time, even if it's also clear that the scars left behind can take a very long time to heal.

Last Days In Cleaver Square is a novel by British novelist, Patrick McGrath. Some forty years after he returned from a stint as an ambulance driver with the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War, Francis McNulty is still living in the Cleaver Square house in which he grew up. A published poet renowned for his verse inspired by his time in Spain, he is annoyed his work-in-progress is missing.

“I was once a poet. I can’t write it now, poetry. Those rivers of imagery that, oh! – that once swept through my imagination like ancient mighty waters in flood? All long since departed”

Downstairs lives his housekeeper, Dolores Lopez, whom he saved and brought to London after her family was killed during the bombing of Madrid. His daughter Gillian, a civil servant with the Foreign Office, shares the upper floors with him, but plans to marry Sir Percy Gauss, meaning Francis will be alone again.

Perhaps it’s the news of the dying Spanish dictator, the courts martial, the executions, that cause Franco to appear: first in the street, then his beloved garden (afflicted by mildew, Francis blames the generalisimo’s foul presence), and even in his bedroom.

“Fraying dark blue sash, badly rusted medals, red tassels, gold piping, various arm-of-service insignia and crossed muskets under a double bugle with a red diamond on each collar point. Riding boots, filthy, as though he’d come through a cowshed or a military toilet. He was decrepit and unclean, he was sickly looking, falling apart, in fact, and he stank.”

Gilly is concerned when he reveals who he has seen. “She suspects I am losing my mind.” She may refer to it as an apparition, but Francis knows the dictator is really there, a ghoul he is sure that Dolores also sees, a ghoul demanding an apology.

When his older sister Finty arrives, months early for her December visit, Francis knows Gilly has been sharing her worries about him. There’s talk of selling the house, which he certainly won’t allow; they tell him “You forget things, and you make things up”, and yes, his poems are missing, he is plagued by nightmares, he sometimes gets a little confused, but moving in with his daughter and her new husband? Unthinkable!

“You are thinking of your garden, of course. Was I thinking of my garden? I was now. And when I thought of my garden I thought about blight, and the causes of blight. – I can give you a garden, Percy Gauss said. But can you give me a smelly Fascist dictator with blood on his hands who comes into my bed at night and kills all my plants and then demands an apology? I did not say this.”

Meanwhile, Francis regularly slips out across the Square to the Earl of Rochester, to chat over a gin and tonic to Hugh Supple, a journalist who is writing “a long piece for the Manchester Guardian about my experiences in Spain as a way to provide what he called a living context to the poetry.” Francis finds himself sharing details he had no intention of ever revealing, a guilty secret that has haunted him for decades.

This is very much a literary read: the prose is gorgeous, evocative and full of subtle humour (although the reason Franco demands an apology is laugh-out-loud funny); a familiarity with the Spanish Civil War might enhance the enjoyment, but is not essential; the narrator is unreliable, a rather bitter, perhaps slightly demented old man, frail but stubborn, who nonetheless draws the reader’s empathy.

Filled with sharp dialogue and wit, this is a powerful and beautifully written tale. Sadly, it loses half a star of the potential 4.5 star rating for indulging in the arrogant and annoying editorial affectation of omitting quote marks for speech, but a worthwhile read, all the same.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK

"I did it for Doc, whom I'd grievously betrayed, and about whom my guilt is a mordant canker which has gnawed at my innards for more years than I can remember, and this I only confess to you now, having deceived you as to my true condition, and pretended a soundness of mind and spirit which I frankly do not possess.'

There is no deception; we know that our dear narrator is unreliable, we do not know what is real or what is imagined, what is history or what is exaggerated - but that is part of the point I think, who of us can ever be entirely reliable?

Francis Mcnulty is coming to the end of his life, he fought in the Spanish Civil War and spent the years afterwards as a successful poet. He lives with his only daughter Gilly in his childhood home on Cleaver Square, but things are starting to move on; Gilly is engaged to be married and Francis is feeling his own mortality. He is visited regularly by a ghoul, an apparition, who Francis is convinced is General Franco who himself is close to death in Spain

Told, almost as a series of diary entries, Patrick McGrath's language is elegant and poetic yet it retains a breathtaking precision. Quoted as having the ability to expose our darkest fears without making us run away from them, he has the power to beguile his reader in a way that you are swept away and will happily follow wherever he takes you. And he takes you to the darkest of corners; the secret that has haunted for most of your life, the realisation that you cannot stop the passage of time; the inevitable end, but in a way that brings a quiet acceptance, a sense of calm. There is a humour in his writing, a smile, an encouraged chuckle and even actual laughter - his nuanced prose leaves you with a new friend, you care about Francis, he matters.

'For oh dear, it is a spartan business, this growing old, this cleaving to life, because it demands that you jettison so much that once had been the very zest and pith of life, and why? So that life, pithless, and sans zest, may continue, and the flesh, oh, the flesh, the sins of the flesh - they are as motes in a fading sunbeam. And how I do miss them. Yes.'

Dear, dear Francis McNulty will follow me and I will think of him, in the way that you do a cherished grandparent - the best of relatives; those frustrating, cantankerous humans, full of vigour and spirit. This novel tackles dark and difficult subject matter, but it left with the overriding feeling that aging is a privilege and an honour and above all something to embrace and kick the hell out of!

Thanks to #netgalley and #hutchinson for allowing me to read this ARC in return for an honest review.

London, 1975. Francis McNulty, a veteran of the Spanish Civil War and now an old man, is haunted by visions of General Franco...

A few days on from finishing Last Days in Cleaver Square, I still have mixed feelings about it. The writing style of this novel is rather unusual and, although I did eventually become accustomed to it, I can't help feeling that it detracted from my enjoyment of the book as a whole for me.

My other quibble centres did the fact that the reader has to wait quite a while for the narrator to take us back to the Spain of the 1930s;  these scenes when they finally arrive are intensely moving, but also frustratingly few.  Whilst the protagonist's reluctance to revisit his painful past makes narrative sense, I would have liked a little more detail here.

Despite these qualms, I found this to be a thoughtfully written book.  I liked the unreliability of the narrator. His voice felt real to me and his bitterness at life poignant.

If you're looking for a novel that will stay with you beyond the final page, this could very well be the book for you.

Wonderful. Evocative. Sensitive.
I had never heard of the poet Francis McNulty but this reflection on his life and death by his friend (the author) is delightfully expressed.
At first this was a ghost story - there is a ghoul. But the ghoul is the Italian fascist leader General Franco. He haunts McNulty's bedroom while also in the basement is Dolores Lopez who he helped to escape the Spanish Civil War in a ship to England with other refugees.
Literary figures and many other 'shallow sorts of socialists' as the writer states joined the revolutionary forces in 1936 as Franco took the lead in Spain just as Hitler did in Germany, destroying and killing all in their opposition wake. George Orwell was another such fighter, who with his wife took up arms in Europe when many at home (including politicians and royalty) remained in awe of Hitler and his ilk.
The implication is also that McNulty may also have dementia. Care is required for him. His daughter Gilly is around and the glorious sister Finty arrives with her paints from the distant isles in Scotland. Gilly has a love interest with Sir Percy and links with the Foreign Office and diplomacy for them both.
My favourite scenes were when McNulty accompanies the family to Madrid and all the past memories come crashing in. That this collides with the death in 1975 of his ghoul Franco makes the whole story weave towards an emotional end in all ways.
Superb read. I must seek out McNulty's poetry.

Last Days in Cleaver Square sees a Spanish civil war veteran close to death, haunted by Franco’s spectre thanks to a terrible act of betrayal committed during the war. London, Autumn 1975. A veteran of the war, poet and fragile elderly gentleman Francis McNulty had once fought on the Republican side and now almost 40 years later he has become delusional and is frequently beset with sightings in his garden of his old nemesis, General Franco. Living in Cleaver Square, a scruffy location in Kennington, South London, his regular episodes of seeing Franco in his full military uniform complete with rusty medals not only deeply trouble Francis but also his middle-aged, newly engaged daughter Gillian, who lives with him in the eponymous square; her soon to be husband is none other than Sir Percy Gauss of the Foreign Office. And while Franco is still alive, although currently on his deathbed, he is, in reality, thousands of miles away in a palace laden with romantic painter Francisco Goya’s expensive artworks in Madrid.

After Francis wakes up screaming having purportedly seen Franco by his bedside, Gilly summons her Aunt Finty from her home on the remote Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. Artist Finty and her younger brother Francis have always been close and spent their formative years growing up in the same Cleaver Square property. Those around Francis can see how far gone he is, and do their utmost to help care for him, including live-in housekeeper Dolores Lopez, an orphan of the civil war who Francis rescued at the tender age of eight and of course Gilly and Finty. Francis' account of his haunting is by turns witty, cantankerous and nostalgic. At times he drifts back to his days in Madrid when he rescued a young girl from a burning building and brought her back to London with him; that girl was Dolores. There are other, darker events from that time, involving an American surgeon called Doc Roscoe, and a brief, terrible act of betrayal he cannot shake from his mind.

When Gillian announces her forthcoming marriage to a senior civil servant, Francis realises he has to adapt to new circumstances and confront his past once and for all. Last Days in Cleaver Square is a compelling, captivating and deeply poignant story and one we can all relate to as it explores ageing, guilt, the fallibility of memory and the importance of both legacy and family. It's richly atmospheric as well as powerful and moving but it is not without its humour and is peopled with beautiful humanised characters. Underpinning the narrative is an omnipresent sense of dread that continues to creep for the entirety and a first-person narrator who is wildly unreliable giving rise to an air of unpredictability. It's a dramatic yet understated and nuanced tale that is ostensibly a reckoning with the past and a nod to the legacy of midcentury fascism. Sensitive themes such as deceit and trauma are deftly handled and culminate in a satisfying conclusion in which Francis attains peace and clears his conscience before passing on. Highly recommended.

This is a beautiful written book about Francis McNulty and his home in Cleaver Street. He was in Spain when Franco caused so much death and destruction. But now Francis is seeing France’s ghoul in his home.
How can Francis find peace? Read and enjoy every page while you find out.

Last Days in Cleaver Square was a treasure of a book. The style of writing took some getting used to but once I did, I flew through it.

Francis McNutty is a loveable rogue but as a narrator he is somewhat unreliable. It is hard to characterise what this book is about because it covers so many different things.

It is 1975 and Francis is nearing the end of his life and he is making sure everyone knows it. Francis is a veteran of the Spanish civil war and recently he has been seeing Franco everywhere, in his garden, on the street and even in his bedroom. He is also frequently thinking about an event early in his life that torments him still and fills him with feelings of guilt.

The protagonist reminded me fiercely of my grandad, in particular his propensity for tall tales and ability to hold court for an audience.

This book is about many things, but it is essentially a study in the trials of ageing and the feeling of being diminished. He experiences the feeling of being considered less reliable because of his age but in turn his age means his memory isn’t what it was and that in turn makes him less believable.

“Age withers one in so many ways.”

Last Days in Cleaver Square is humorous, well-written and unique and I highly recommend it.

This is great for fans of Hendrik Groen.

My thanks to NetGalley and Cornerstone for this advance copy.

It took me while to appreciate and feel comfortable reading this novel as it was unnerving in style and context. I can well imagine how the mind can play tricks as we age, conjuring up ghouls. The characters are bold, lifelike and beautifully portrayed.

Written in narrative by an old, semi-demented veteran of the Spanish Civil War as he approaches the end of his life who is constantly haunted by General Franco whilst he lives. These are the ramblings of an old man who eventually succeeds in atonement and absolution. Full of dry humour and wit and I really liked the scene at the crypt in Madrid! Overwhelmingly sentimental and a pleasure to read.

A bittersweet and witty novel about an English poet and a veteran of the Spanish Civil war at the twilight of his life. Francis McNulty lives in a big house in South London with Gillian, his middle aged and unmarried daughter. An unreliable narrator, Francis is plagued by nightmares related to his experiences during the war and he is haunted by the ghost of his nemesis, a weeping and rather physically dilapidated General Franco. It should also be said that the story takes place in late 1975 and that Franco is agonizing in a Madrid hospital.......
A powerful story about fading memories, untold secrets and painful regrets and a delightful portrait of a frail but stubborn man determined to make amends before his last curtain call....But unbeknownst to him, "lucky" Francis will get a last opportunity to redeem himself with an unforgettable and hilarious act that will definitely allow him to shamelessly erase all his emotional angst and leave a very clean slate behind .....😉👍
A delicious fictional experience from start to finish to be enjoyed without moderation!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House/Corner Square for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful novel prior to its release date

I hadn't read Patrick McGrath's previous novels so this was my introduction to his exquisite craftsmanship. And a beautiful introduction it certainly was. From the very first pages, it's impossible not to find the stubborn old Francis McNulty terribly endearing. Although it soon becomes clear that he is a pretty unreliable narrator, he is one despite himself. And it takes the skill of a great writer to manage to handle such a narration with the humour and subtlety demonstrated by McGrath. All the grief brought about by the Spanish Civil War to those who experienced it is contained in this short, tremendously moving novel.

I was attracted to this book because of the beautiful cover. The colours and almost symmetrical arrangement of the autumn leaves is very appealing to me. Then I read the blurb and thought it sounded quite unusual.. It is exactly the sort of book I would pick up in a bookshop or library.

This is a haunting novel in many ways. The main character Francis McNulty narrates the story - sometimes he is talking to his journalist friend in the pub and at other times it is his own private thoughts and ruminations. He is aging and suffering nightmares and seeing an apparition in the garden and the house, who he believes to be General Franco. His family think he is becoming senile.

Gradually his part in the Spanish civil war is shared and it is clear that he is haunted by his betrayal of a captured colleague who is executed. If this was a present day account of an experience in Afghanistan we would say that the person was suffering from PTSD. But this is set in 1975 and that is not mentioned, although mental deterioration is inferred.

This is not a happy story - although there are some lighter moments. However, it is very well written and as a shorter novel would make a great book club choice - there are loads of aspects to discuss. I was completely thrown by the editors comment at the end. It talks about disorganised diaries being the source of the novel. I am undecided whether this is part of the fictional account or whether there truly is a true story behind the novel.

Highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Sinister

Francis lives out his last days in Cleaver Square, haunted by the ghost of General Franco. When daughter Gilly announces she is going to marry, Francis is forced to confront his past. Set in 1970s London.

The protagonist is an unreliable narrator of the best kind: witty, bitchy and self-serving. Razor sharp dialogue slices deep with emotion.

McGrath is a master storyteller who builds suspense over time, percolating the horrors of his character’s past into the narrative.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone for the ARC.