One Last Song, Nathan Evans, book review: ‘A delicately oblique love story’

Author Nathan Evans. Photograph: courtesy Inkandescent

Moving to a care home does not curb the fashionista impulse in Joan, who is more likely than not seen decked out in cerulean trousers, a cerise blouse and pink Birkenstocks. Jim, on the other hand, sports a blazer and tie.

On meeting, the two elderly men look askance at each other; after all, what can a radical-activist former costume designer and a retired civil engineer have in common?

Joan breaks every rule in the book, while Jim lives by convention and has not even heard the term ‘heteronormative’.

Yet step by teetering step, attraction grows, and years of habit fall away.

One Last Song, published in February by Hackney-based Inkandescent Press, is the first novel by poet and performer Nathan Evans.

The author’s creative background comes through in the melody of the words we read – “Now my mind is a candle, long-melted. And my memories moth-wings, caught in it”.

But the novel also has an engaging narrative that keeps the pages turning.

Both a delicately oblique love story and an inverted ‘coming-of-age’ tale, One Last Song will have you giggling while reaching for the tissues.

One Last Song by Nathan Evans is published by Inkandescent Press, ISBN: 978-1-912620-28-9; RRP: £9.99.