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The Executor
What matters most: marriage or friendship? fidelity or art? the wishes of the living or the talents of the dead?
Matt Holmes finds himself considering these questions sooner than he thinks when his friend, the poet Robert Pope, dies unexpectedly. Rob had invited Matt to become his literary executor at their annual boozy lunch, pointing out that, at 60, he was likely to be around for some time yet. And Matt, having played devotee and apprentice to ‘the bow-tie poet’ for so long, hadn’t the heart (or the gumption) to deny him.
Now, after a frosty welcome from his widow, Matt sits at Rob’s rosewood desk and ponders his friend’s motives. He has never understood Rob’s conventional life with Jill, who seems to have no interest in her late husband’s work. But he soon finds himself in an ethical minefield, making shocking and scabrous discoveries that overturn everything he thought he knew about his friend. As Jill gets to work in the back garden, Matt is forced to weigh up the merits of art and truth. Should he conceal what he has found or share it? After all, it’s not just Rob’s reputation that could be transformed forever…
Bestselling novelist and poet Blake Morrison creates a biting portrait of competitive male friendship, sexual obsession and the fragile transactions of married life. The Executor innovatively interweaves poetry and prose to form a gripping literary detective story.
Matt Holmes finds himself considering these questions sooner than he thinks when his friend, the poet Robert Pope, dies unexpectedly. Rob had invited Matt to become his literary executor at their annual boozy lunch, pointing out that, at 60, he was likely to be around for some time yet. And Matt, having played devotee and apprentice to ‘the bow-tie poet’ for so long, hadn’t the heart (or the gumption) to deny him.
Now, after a frosty welcome from his widow, Matt sits at Rob’s rosewood desk and ponders his friend’s motives. He has never understood Rob’s conventional life with Jill, who seems to have no interest in her late husband’s work. But he soon finds himself in an ethical minefield, making shocking and scabrous discoveries that overturn everything he thought he knew about his friend. As Jill gets to work in the back garden, Matt is forced to weigh up the merits of art and truth. Should he conceal what he has found or share it? After all, it’s not just Rob’s reputation that could be transformed forever…
Bestselling novelist and poet Blake Morrison creates a biting portrait of competitive male friendship, sexual obsession and the fragile transactions of married life. The Executor innovatively interweaves poetry and prose to form a gripping literary detective story.
- GenresFictionContemporary
336 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2018
5 people are currently reading
117 people want to read
About the author
Blake Morrison
75 books65 followersBlake Morrison was educated at Nottingham University, McMaster University and University College, London. After working for the Times Literary Supplement, he went on to become literary editor of both The Observer and the Independent on Sunday before becoming a full-time writer in 1995.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" and "Things My Mother Never Told Me."
Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, Blake has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. His best-known works are probably his two memoirs, "And When Did You Last See Your Father?" and "Things My Mother Never Told Me."
Since 2003, Blake has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. He lives in south London, with his wife and three children.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 25, 2018
This gently suspenseful novel is about a books editor for a London newspaper who’s asked to be the literary executor for a poet friend who then dies suddenly. Matt, the editor/executor narrator, struggles to balance work and family life (a wife and three kids), especially as he makes weekly visits to Robert Pope’s widow to spend time organizing archival documents and looking for previously unpublished work. The crisis comes when he discovers a whole cache of new poems, many of them sexually explicit and likely to embarrass his widow for their suggestion that Pope had many relationships outside of marriage. But is it a mistake to assume they are autobiographical, even when they use the first person? This is a clever treatment of art versus life and the creative legacy. Morrison’s writing reminded me of John Burnside’s in Ashland & Vine and Sarah Moss’s in The Tidal Zone. He also ably voices Pope’s poems, including an appended set of 26. After reading this and And When Did You Last See Your Father? earlier in the year, I’d be willing to try Morrison’s work in any genre.
Favorite lines:
“if a glance at the dust jacket, or rapid sampling of the first page, suggests it’s not a book worth bothering with, you put it in the reject pile without even a twinge of conscience.”
Matt’s wife Marie: “Cryonic suspension, poetic immortality: they’re a fantasy. People die. And the stuff they do in life dies too.”
“I hadn’t known the confessional Rob of the poems. That Rob was a new person. So was Rob the gardener, Rob the dog owner, Rob the almost-parent, Rob the settled suburbanite. The old Rob was fading. I now had several of him in my head.”
Favorite lines:
“if a glance at the dust jacket, or rapid sampling of the first page, suggests it’s not a book worth bothering with, you put it in the reject pile without even a twinge of conscience.”
Matt’s wife Marie: “Cryonic suspension, poetic immortality: they’re a fantasy. People die. And the stuff they do in life dies too.”
“I hadn’t known the confessional Rob of the poems. That Rob was a new person. So was Rob the gardener, Rob the dog owner, Rob the almost-parent, Rob the settled suburbanite. The old Rob was fading. I now had several of him in my head.”
May 8, 2018
A journalist who considers himself the epitome of mediocrity is asked to fulfil the position of literary executor by his older friend, a successful (albeit waning) poet, in the event of the latter's death. He accepts without thinking much about it, assuming Rob has decades left, only for him to unexpectedly pass away months later. When Matt starts digging through Rob's papers, he discovers unpublished work that casts his friend in a new, unflattering light. What begins as a story about one's literary legacy and whether it matters to have lived more 'on the page' or, well, in life, actually turns out to be largely about infidelity, both emotional and physical.
The Executor is really good, but was emotionally difficult for me at the time I read it. (I hated the poems for this reason.) It's a beautifully and elegantly written story about horrible characters – horrible in the banal way everyone is, which can be (perhaps always is?) harder to read about than outright villainy. I felt throughout like I was in the shoes, in the skin, of every person getting hurt, especially the women. While the psychological authenticity is impressive, this is a book to be avoided if you're feeling vulnerable. (And yes, I know this is not much of a 'review', but it's about all I can bring myself to write about this.)
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The Executor is really good, but was emotionally difficult for me at the time I read it. (I hated the poems for this reason.) It's a beautifully and elegantly written story about horrible characters – horrible in the banal way everyone is, which can be (perhaps always is?) harder to read about than outright villainy. I felt throughout like I was in the shoes, in the skin, of every person getting hurt, especially the women. While the psychological authenticity is impressive, this is a book to be avoided if you're feeling vulnerable. (And yes, I know this is not much of a 'review', but it's about all I can bring myself to write about this.)
TinyLetter | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr
April 14, 2018
Blake Morrison’s books have an unusual effect on me: I either like them enormously or detest them thoroughly. I divide them as follows.
Shit - As If..., Things My Mother Never Told Me, South of the River, Too True, Selected Poems
Hit - Shingle Street, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, The Last Weekend.
Looking back, I can’t help noting how Morrison’s characters are nearly always hangers-on to other people’s lives and successes. The narrator is a journalist and an old friend of Robert Pope, a cheerless poet of high reputation past his peak and only too aware of it. The hero is asked to become Pope’s executor, Pope duly snuffs it; much musing follows. The narrator asks himself a lot of questions, perhaps in the belief that quantity equals profundity. A nod to the controversy after the death of Philip Larkin is made, plainly the basis for the novel.
As with Larkin, a sheaf of previously-unseen poems (duly reprinted in an appendix section) casts new light on a seemingly dull life. The stick in the mud is revealed as a Casanova with an occasional taste for euthanasia. Some of the poems I rather enjoyed (‘Morph’, ‘Thanatos’, ‘Outsider’, ‘X-Rated’). They aren’t essential to the plot, however - this isn’t Pale Fire.
The novel tells you a lot about how a book page gets put together, and what’s become of them. The best parts, by far, are about having a family and raising kids. No one I know of has written about having small children with more fidelity than Morrison.
The book’s flaws are too many, alas. Chapter four sags like a bear in a hammock. Morrison has the veteran writer’s vice of having too much to say and trying to say it all at once. (‘My heart lurched a little when I saw her, but I smiled, in a no-hard-feelings, business-as-usual kind of way, which seemed to work, because we went for coffee after class, and talked some more about the text we’d been discussing, a D.H Lawrence story that I liked and she didn’t, her objections to it being (I couldn’t help but feel) more than a little predictable, focusing as they did on Lawrence himself, or a received feminist caricature of him, rather than the text.’) You can almost hear the army from Monty Python yelling Gerron with it.
Skip this and get The Last Weekend instead.
Shit - As If..., Things My Mother Never Told Me, South of the River, Too True, Selected Poems
Hit - Shingle Street, And When Did You Last See Your Father?, The Last Weekend.
Looking back, I can’t help noting how Morrison’s characters are nearly always hangers-on to other people’s lives and successes. The narrator is a journalist and an old friend of Robert Pope, a cheerless poet of high reputation past his peak and only too aware of it. The hero is asked to become Pope’s executor, Pope duly snuffs it; much musing follows. The narrator asks himself a lot of questions, perhaps in the belief that quantity equals profundity. A nod to the controversy after the death of Philip Larkin is made, plainly the basis for the novel.
As with Larkin, a sheaf of previously-unseen poems (duly reprinted in an appendix section) casts new light on a seemingly dull life. The stick in the mud is revealed as a Casanova with an occasional taste for euthanasia. Some of the poems I rather enjoyed (‘Morph’, ‘Thanatos’, ‘Outsider’, ‘X-Rated’). They aren’t essential to the plot, however - this isn’t Pale Fire.
The novel tells you a lot about how a book page gets put together, and what’s become of them. The best parts, by far, are about having a family and raising kids. No one I know of has written about having small children with more fidelity than Morrison.
The book’s flaws are too many, alas. Chapter four sags like a bear in a hammock. Morrison has the veteran writer’s vice of having too much to say and trying to say it all at once. (‘My heart lurched a little when I saw her, but I smiled, in a no-hard-feelings, business-as-usual kind of way, which seemed to work, because we went for coffee after class, and talked some more about the text we’d been discussing, a D.H Lawrence story that I liked and she didn’t, her objections to it being (I couldn’t help but feel) more than a little predictable, focusing as they did on Lawrence himself, or a received feminist caricature of him, rather than the text.’) You can almost hear the army from Monty Python yelling Gerron with it.
Skip this and get The Last Weekend instead.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 15, 2018
A sharp, clever tale
November 15, 2018
It would be really good to have half star options because this book was not quite a four star one but was better than just three.
The premise is a journalist becoming an executor for his poet friend’s literary estate. In the course of going through his friend’s work, he realises he didn’t know his friend as well as he thought he did. The question arises as to whether unpublished works should be published or not between Matt and the widow of his friend.
I found the story intriguing at times but sometimes it doesn’t live up to the tension that has built up. One scene in particular does this and I am left wondering why it had the build up it did.
The other aspect of the book that I found difficult is the transition between present and past. It just doesn’t flow very well, especially in the earlier chapters.
There were also a couple scenes added into he mix that seemed rather pointless to the story in the end.
All that said I found the examination of the ethics of publishing work of an artist posthumously quite moving and could understand the different views of the characters well. The characters were all worth knowing and trying to understand.
The premise is a journalist becoming an executor for his poet friend’s literary estate. In the course of going through his friend’s work, he realises he didn’t know his friend as well as he thought he did. The question arises as to whether unpublished works should be published or not between Matt and the widow of his friend.
I found the story intriguing at times but sometimes it doesn’t live up to the tension that has built up. One scene in particular does this and I am left wondering why it had the build up it did.
The other aspect of the book that I found difficult is the transition between present and past. It just doesn’t flow very well, especially in the earlier chapters.
There were also a couple scenes added into he mix that seemed rather pointless to the story in the end.
All that said I found the examination of the ethics of publishing work of an artist posthumously quite moving and could understand the different views of the characters well. The characters were all worth knowing and trying to understand.
December 9, 2019
Such mixed thoughts about this book. I wanted to dump it half way through as we STILL had not reached any punchline. Beautifully written and the character development was magic but sooooo slow. 3/4 way in and the plot starts to unroll but it was too little to late. If it were half the length it could have been way more of a book. Book then, if it were half the length we wouldn't have known Matt and the ethical dilemmas as we did. Final decision - could have been a great book but too slow and too long for the content.
July 10, 2022
Slow paced, thoughtful but gradually unfolds into a very clever conclusion with a clever twist in the narrative. I'm not always a fan of middle class settings-architects, trips to the National Theatre, sushi, people called Petra- but the narrator brings warmth and humanity to the story. Its a novel about poetry and how it links to the life of the poet as well as their family, friends and lovers and all the problems that can cause. Definitely worth a read.
July 29, 2019
When a poet dies and leaves behind unpublished, disturbing work = and seems to have hidden it - how is it to be interpreted? And who gets to decide whether to publish or not - the widow or the literary executor? An interesting plot idea, and an okay but not brilliant novel.
February 25, 2025
A poet asks his friend, who is also a writer, if he will be the executor of his literary work. The poet dies at quite a young age and his friend, who takes his duties very seriously, has to determine whether the unpublished poems should be printed. The poems are all included.
March 17, 2019
Just fantastic. It proves novels can be of any form if we have the courage to write and read them. I absolutely loved this. A must-read.
April 10, 2019
Poetry in (e)motion
January 10, 2019
How boring and drab can a book get - well you are looking at one. I very, very rarely don't finish a book, even boring and drab ones but I found this one impossible to read. It was very useful at sending me off to sleep whilst reading in bed though so it did have a use.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews