For Those Who Come After

'...majestic in its voice, bracing in its ideas – a man's pained confession that is told with depth, urgency and poise.' –Samantha Harvey

 

 

Deep in the savage chaos of the Spanish Civil War a poet searches for answers to what he calls his "conversation with God". Another poet searches simply for revenge. Decades later, a biographer in search of a key to unlocking an enigma, comes across a manuscript locked away in an old London mansion house, revealing a history of violence, duty and one man's struggle to find his place in time.

 

The story told by aged hermit billionaire Hal Buren, scratching out the testament of his life in the dim light of his childhood home, is dominated by the disappearance of his brother almost fifty years before. Buren spends his life trying to protect his domineering mother, Matilda, and his sister's wife, Bess, from the corrosive truth, a truth that ends up rotting Buren himself. As the story develops a question grows: what can we trust to learn from our history? A novel that spans the twentieth century and introduces a litany of unforgettable characters, For Those Who Come After is a study in myth-making, of familial bonds, and the destructive tides of enduring love.

Gary Raymond is a novelist, critic, editor and broadcaster. He is the presenter of The Review Show for BBC Radio Wales, and is editor of Wales Arts Review. He is the author of two previous novels, The Golden Orphans (described by The Spectator as "intense, unnerving and brilliant") and For Those Who Come After, as well as a non-fiction book, How Love Actually Ruined Christmas. His second novel, The Golden Orphans, was picked as best new crime novel in The Spectator and was previewer’s pick of the month for June 2018 in The Bookseller. It remained on the WH Smith fiction chart for six weeks. He has edited a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books, from short story anthologies to political memoir. As a critic he has been seen in the pages of The Guardian and heard on BBC Radio Four’s Front Row and BBC Radio Three’s Sunday Morning programme.