The novel has been characterized as a satire of religion and the entertainment industry. Ferguson has hinted in various interviews that there is a fair amount of autobiography in the story.[1]
Ferguson has attributed the inspiration for the novel's title to a conversation with a Jesuit priest about whether all those who commit suicide go to hell. According to Ferguson, the priest said that while suicide was a mortal sin, if someone were to jump from a bridge and genuinely repented of their action before they hit the river they would be forgiven. Ferguson interpreted this as there always being one last chance of redemption,[2] which is the core of the adventures in the novel.
Ferguson's great grandfather, Adam McLachlan, appears as a supporting character.
Plot
The novel follows two best friends from Glasgow: Fraser Darby, an alcoholic televangelist caught up in a sex scandal, and George Ingram, an attorney diagnosed with terminal cancer who contemplates suicide. In a parallel, the story also follows two half-brothers in the Southern U.S.: Leon and Saul Martini, the illegitimate children of a Las Vegas, Nevada showgirl, with the two fathers being Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford. Eventually the lives of these four men intersect in a journey that ranges from Scotland to France, from Atlanta, Georgia to rural Florida, and from Hollywood to Belgium during World War I.
