The Last Days

A Scotsman Book to Watch for 2022

It is 1982 and in the Kingdom Hall we are Jehovah's Witnesses. The state of the world shows us the end is close, and Satan is like a roaring lion, seeking to devour us.

Ali Millar is waiting for Armageddon. Born into the Jehovah's Witnesses in a town in the Scottish Borders, her childhood revolves around regular meetings in the Kingdom Hall, where she is haunted by vivid images of the Second Coming, her mind populated by the bodies that will litter the earth upon Jehovah's return.

In this frightening, cloistered world Ali grows older. As she does, she starts to question the ways of the Witnesses, and their control over the most intimate aspects of her life. As she marries and has a daughter within the religion, she finds herself pulled deeper and deeper into its dark undertow, her mind tormented by one question: is it possible to escape the life you are born into?

A tale of love and darkness, of faith and absolution, The Last Days is an unforgettable memoir of one woman's courageous journey to freedom.

Ali Millar was born and raised in the Scottish Borders, and now lives in England with her husband and four children. She has an MA with Distinction in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier University, and has worked as a cultural producer for Summerhall in Edinburgh, for whom she has interviewed dozens of writers including Marina Warner, Rachel Cusk, Emma Jane Unsworth, and Etgar Keret. She has also chaired events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.