ED O'LOUGHLIN is an Irish-Canadian author and journalist. He is the author of three previous novels, including the Booker Prize-longlisted Not Untrue and Not Unkind, the Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Minds of Winter, and the critically acclaimed Toploader. As a journalist, he reported from Africa for several newspapers, including the Irish Times and the Independent of London. He was later the Middle East correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age of Melbourne. Born in Toronto and raised in Ireland, he now lives in Dublin with his wife and two children.
War correspondent, father, husband, son, friend and grieving brother - Ed O'Loughlin has given us a powerful and unusual memoir. At times heartbreaking and often laugh-aloud funny, The Last Good Funeral is set to be among the very best of books for 2022. -- Christine Dwyer Hickey Ed O'Loughlin is a natural storyteller, a good one, and he invites the reader right alongside in his honest search for meaning through reminiscence, memory and adventure. With precision and expertise, he probes past and present chapters of his life, all the while imparting his own brand of wisdom and humour. A great pleasure to read! -- Frances Itani, winner of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and author of Deafening The past is a revenant that haunts the present in this exquisite and startling memoir by Ed O'Loughlin. The Last Good Funeral of the Year is a witty, engaging, heartbreaking, and beautifully wrought tour through the workings of memory, all unearthed during the world's great period of lockdown stillness. The stories and their people will remain with you long after finishing this book. -- Emily Urquhart, Canadian author and memoirist The Last Good Funeral of the Year is intelligent, funny, profound, painfully honest, beautifully written, and powerfully moving. Ed O'Loughlin is a writer who does brilliantly everything he turns his hand to; it's no surprise to find that his memoir is so unforgettably good. -- Kevin Power, author of White City This is a searing book, reminiscent of Joan Didion's masterpiece, The Year of Magical Thinking. It wheels between the waypoints in O'Loughlin's life with remarkable dexterity, honesty and grace... What I found here was an exquisite portrait of grief * The Miramichi Reader *