Anna Clarke was born in Cape Town and educated in Montreal and Oxford. She holds degrees in economics and English literature and has held a wide variety of jobs, mostly in publishing and university administration.
G. E. Goff is a national treasure of a writer. His grandsom and a well-known critic/reviewer both want to inherit his papers and journals in order to write about him. He is cared for primarily by his step-daughter and two nurses who work opposite shifts. He an intelligent, biting man of 90 who keeps his step-daughter busy as his personal secretary and typist. Her life has been dull and she stays in order to keep a promise to her deceased mother. I will leave it to the reader to find out how the Last Judgement is carried out.