Before I Go

Shep Meadows is ninety-seven, four foot twelve, and unintelligible to almost everyone on his Oxford estate. He has lived in the same Cutteslowe house since 1932, surrounded by four generations of his sprawling family. Every morning he walks. He watches. He eavesdrops. He sees more than anyone.

Earlier this year his beloved great-niece Angel died in circumstances no one has explained. Goaded by his nephew Filbert’s casual remark that God has perhaps forgotten him, Shep resolves to tell what happened – and to do so he must tell us about all the others in whose lives the child once nestled, his little bird.

Across twelve months of comedy, grief and slow revelation, Shep gives us his estate in full: Grandma, Lulu and Elvis, Josie home from the army, the Earl of Cutteslowe, Jules at the Community Centre. A wise and tender state-of-the-nation novel told from four feet twelve off the ground.