The Last Train to Hull

The Last Train to Hull is the story of bookish but naive Edward Sweeney. Arriving at Hull University from Belfast in 1976 to study for his doctorate, Sweeney finds himself between worlds - Northern Ireland and England, working-class family and middle-class friends, youth and maturity, fantasy and reality. Yet he doesn't feel he's exchanged one godforsaken place for another. Hull, despite an atmosphere of isolation and economic decline, gives him permission to live freely. A scholarly career beckons, and life has never seemed better. He falls in love with a local woman who, like him, lives between worlds and he jokes he had to travel all this way just to find her. It is a relationship which challenges Sweeney's comforting illusions and confronts him with the question whether, in life and in love, we should choose to be more, rather than less, deceived.

This is one in a series of novels featuring Edward Sweeney. The chronological order of the trilogy is:

• The Last Train to Hull
• Four Days in Villach
• Between Hougham and Heaven