Last Seen, Matt Cohen’s penultimate novel, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and the Trillium Book Award. Last Seen is a darkly comic story of two brothers and a woman who brings them both back to life. Harold, the older brother, is handsome and charming but dying of cancer. Alex is bookish and a scholar in Europe. With Francine, a nurse they both once loved, Alec cares for Harold until he dies. One day, Alec goes into a bar full of Elvis impersonators and there meets Francine—and Harold. Why has Harold come back from the dead? In this fragmentary tale of obsessive grieving, Cohen mixes moments of wry humour with touching pathos. Last Seen demonstrates that it takes more than death to untie the knot between two brothers.

From the eBook edition.

Matt Cohen was born in Kingston, Ontario in 1942. He received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of Toronto. In the late 1960s he taught political economy at McMaster University before becoming a full-time writer. Since 1969 he has published twenty books, including novels, short stories, poetry and two books for children.

He received critical acclaim for many of his books, notably `The Salem Novels` - The Disinherited (1974), The Colours of War (1977), The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone (1979), Flowers of Darkness (1981), and Emotional Arithmetic (1990). He was short-listed for the Governor General's Award in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and was a finalist for the 1988 Ontario Trillium Award for his short story collection Living on Water. As well, his short stories have twice won National Magazine Awards, and his books have been translated into Dutch, French and Portuguese.

Matt Cohen died in 1999.

Matt Cohen's profile page

• Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Awards - Fiction

"Read it. Last Seen will burn a hole in your heart." -Monday Magazine
"His best novel to date.... Almost unbearably sad, it's also, at times, very funny ... and full of a quirky, left-handed wisdom [for which] we give thanks." -Margaret Atwood, The Globe and Mail
"Unforgettable ... will leave empathetic readers sweaty-palmed and gasping." -NOW
"Last Seen is glorious. Matt Cohen composes an eloquent anthem to brotherhood, to earthly and unearthly attachments, and not least, to death itself. That he accomplishes this with beauty, grace and also great humour is simply remarkable." -Joan Barfoot

"Rich and imaginative ... Last Seen is an exquisitely written and uplifting novel." -Calgary Herald
"Last Seen is a dark, mordantly funny novel [and] a story of tremendous emotional power."-The Ottawa Citizen