Last Night on Earth - Hardcover

The story unfolds like an action film with the beating heart of an intellectual rom-com. Jay's journey from young man to proper grown-up is told with tight, witty prose and deeply felt emotion (Melissa Katsoulis The Times)

It continues to amaze approximately no one here that's (Maher's) follow up- Last Night on Earth, is as wondrous as the first...Maher writes with an exuberance and inventiveness that makes his characters joyous things to behold . . . the novel is as delightful and challenging as it is heart-wrenching and honest (Esquire)

A rowdy, compelling love story . . . At its heart, Last Night on Earth is the story of two people who are very much in love and should be together, but whose marriage buckles under the strain of having a baby who may or may not have a disability. Jay and Shauna's struggle makes for compelling reading, and their anxiety over the welfare of their precious child will find resonance with every parent. Maher writes most powerfully when he is depicting the big emotions, love in particular - romantic love, filial love, parental love, the love between friends (Guardian)

The result is not unlike a winningly unhinged version of David Nicholls's One Day. It also ranks among the most enjoyable novels of the year so far (James Walton Reader's Digest)

Exhilarating . . . the extraordinary love Jay feels for his daughter Bonnie tethers the story, and as Jay gets further mired in disaster, it's not so much the clock ticking down to Millennium Eve that builds the momentum but the question of whether Jay will be able to remake his family (Daily Mail)

Extremely funny but between the comedy and verbal gymnastics, there are moments which are intensely moving and Maher accurately captures the thin line which most new parents tread between overwhelming love and complete terror. This funny, witty and compelling novel is a rollercoaster of a read (Daily Express)

It's great and it's funny - I took to reading a particular paragraph on p. 15 to everyone passing (Sunday Herald)

If all of this seems fearsomely complicated, don't worry: Maher handles his myriad ingredients with an impressive lightness of touch. Last Night on Earth is an old-fashioned, plot-heavy sort of book, the kind of novel that speeds by in a rush of incident and vividly-rendered characters. You look up and a hundred pages have gone by, almost without you having noticed . . . Last Night on Earth is a big, warm-hearted book, funny and touching . . . bursting with anecdotes, gossip, flashbacks, bedtime stories, confessions, jokes, and allusions to movies and philosophers: entertainment, in other words. This is very impressive work from a writer to watch (Sunday Business Post)

On page 1, in 1996, Bonnie tumbles chaotically into the world; reflecting this, Maher's prose has a frantic, uterine echo of Eimear McBride's Girl ("birthy splatlets and baby driplets") but quickly gives way to Jay's voice. And what a voice: the book pivots around him, and from the moment he opens his mouth Jay is a whirling dervish of a character. Kinetic, relentlessly verbal and hard to dislike, he is a memorable rogue . . . Last Night on Earth thrums with energy; the dialogue is slickly moulded, making music of expletives and colloquialisms, and may owe a debt to the fact that Maher is also a film critic. This is a very funny picaresque, unafraid of its emotional core. Jay deserves a place on the big screen (Irish Times)

An authentic word wizard . . . this punchy read takes you where you want to go (Irish Independent)