Customer Reviews

The Garden of Last Days: A Novel

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(29)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

While House of Sand and Fog addressed the heartbreaking dilemma of a proud Iranian immigrant faced with the intractable demands of a young woman and a bureaucratic blunder with tragic consequences pre-9/11, The Garden of Last Days tumbles into a much darker landscape on the eve of America's loss of innocence. The internal drama is played out on the tawdry runway of a Florida Gulf Coast strip club, the Puma Club for Men, where April is forced to break her own strict rule, taking her three-year-old daughter, Franny, to work rather than miss an opportunity to salt away more money toward a future free of the decadent circumstances in which she now makes her living. April is a bit of an anomaly, with a well-thought out plan for escaping the downward spiral of such employment, most of the other dancers fortifying themselves with drugs and the occasional extra date with customers after the club closes. But April is thrown off the usual rhythm of her bifurcated life, the dayworld/nightworld of April/Spring when her landlady goes to the hospital unexpectedly with an anxiety attack.

Deeply troubled by this merging of two worlds, April has every reason to doubt the wisdom of her decision as the shift grinds on. Tina, who agrees to keep an eye on Franny while April dances is at best lackadaisical about Franny's care in a cramped office just off the women's dressing room, Tina easily distracted by the demands of her boss. Tiny Franny, in her pink pajamas, is by turns enthralled by her Disney movies and snacks, but needing constant reassurance that her mother will soon take her home. The following hours are filled with a heart-stopping chain of events portending disaster, the incessant beat of the DJ's selections as each stripper takes to the stage, the drunken shouts of customers paying for a show, the exchange of money for services, all under the guise of a good time. April is watched: by Louis, her lascivious boss; by Lonnie, a bouncer who views "Spring" as different from the others; by Bassam, a chain-smoking, intense young man from Saudi Arabia who walks straight into the embrace of evil, unable to resist the seduction of this foreign country's blatant disregard for modesty. On the cusp of a great personal sacrifice, Bassam covets April's attention in the private Champagne Room, willing to pay handsomely for his moral digression.

Fleshed out by the disaffection of a loud-mouthed customer, AJ, who is thrown out of the club for unacceptable behavior, a terrible chain of events is set in motion, AJ desperate to reclaim wife and son, a victim of his own excesses and a fixation on a wide-eyed dancer whose only interest is in his wallet. As AJ's transgressions pile up in contrast to his best intentions, pinballing over the wreckage of his past actions, Bassam focuses on April/Spring, alternately judging and lecturing while April cannot keep her eyes from the hundreds of dollars that will bring her dream that much closer. As the hours pass, a diverse cast divulges their secrets, the individual histories that have led to this fateful night on the Gulf Coast, the shattered dreams, the misspent promise of youth, lives sidetracked by necessity and bad choices, at the heart of it the slightly ranting of a fanatical Bassam, seduced by the imperfections of the flesh while embracing the distortions of his extremist education.

April otherwise engaged, a little girl awakens, alone and afraid, crying for her mother; a drunk, angry man notices, blundering through his own vague yearnings. And once more, through the minutiae of random struggles, a greater tragedy evolves. Certainly Dubus is a master of the unexpected confluence of events begun through the collision of human frailty and false pride, an impending cultural cataclysm that erases America's innocence. Based on fact, this novel's exploration of the seedy underbelly of modern culture is both intense and broad, Dubus once more shaking a distracted psyche and reminding us to pay attention. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

The beauty of this book was the writer's uncanny ability to share the insides of his characters' heads in a believable way. The people are so genuine and the results of their random collisions with each other are so predictable that the tension is in the inevitability of the outcome. You KNEW some characters were going to be trouble right from the start and it was excruciating not to be able to intervene, to watch the night unravel.
Having been connected to the judicial system (in a good way) for 30 some years, I found the characters' flawed thought processes were consistant and believable. I didn't think it was slow and I didn't want to miss a moment of the writing, as I sometimes do when authors describe scenery and Yaddah Yaddah Yaddah. If you are a student of human motivation and behavior you will like this book.

I bought this book solely based on Stephen King's review in EW, so needless to say, I was expecting a lot. Most of the book takes place over the course of one night at a strip club in Florida. It is essentially based on a bad choice made by April, the stripper, taking her child to work with her instead of staying home and missing a night of tips. It follows the characters as they are connected to April and her daughter and drags on endlessly over every last detail. I felt the book was overly lengthy and about 2/3 into it I skimmed the chapters about Bassam, the 9/11 terrorist. It just became too much background info and not enough story. I just kept plodding along expecting something else to happen...waiting for 9/11 and how all these characters I had invested 400 pages in would react to the tragedy and actually being a small part in the last days of one of the terrorists. I was, however, let down. When the book finally reached 9/11 it was utterly anti-climatic, it just wound down and ultimately ended with no major revelations or surprise, I suppose that was the point.

Shelly

...of reading this incredible novel. What a storyteller, Dubus is! I could not put the book down and read it basically straight through in 2 days. I cared about almost all of the characters, except Bassam. I felt that Dubus really did his research on some of the factors that led up to 9/11. The strip club subculture was fascinating and sounded very realistic. I really cared about April and Franny! AND I cared about AJ, bless his doofus heart. I kept hoping he'd get out of jail and lead a more productive and happy life.

Some of the reviewers have commented on Dubus' writing being overblown, but I couldn't disagree more. As a matter of fact, I noticed that with the closing of each chapter the last sentence would be written in the most beautiful, descriptive manner. Not overblown at all. A great writer and an incredible read.

Well, Andre Dubus III does it again! I loved "House of Sand and Fog" and I love "The Garden of Last Days" equally as much. Absolutely unputdownable, the book was welded to my hands for hours on end. What a great plot and what excellent characterisation. I won't elaborate on plotline, as many other reviewers have written excellent summaries of it, but I will comment on how well paced the novel is, how wonderfully the characters are developed and how quickly you are sucked into the vortex of these characters' lives on the eve of the catastrophic events of 9/11. I found the character of Bassam particularly intriguing and I have to disagree with the 1 and 2 star reviewers; I thought Bassam was a very well realised character. The clash between his seduction by the haram (forbidden) ways of the US and his chosen path as a jidhadist was never short of fascinating. I thought Dubus bought this character to life, with all his doubts, fears and implacable hatred of the Western way of life, that he gets seduced by, in spite of himself. I rate this novel a 5-star effort and I highly recommend "The Garden of Last Days" to one and all.

I too was excited to read this book after enjoying "House of Sand and Fog" and also reading Stephen King's review. It started off great, in my opinion, introducing the players, setting up a storyline, and setting the scene. However, after April's daughter disappears (which occurs about 1/3 of the way through), I felt it just went in circles. I was bored, I wasn't interested in any of the characters, and I felt like it was constant repetition. By the end, I was practically skimming, just wanting to get it over with.

I won't go into details because so many others have. I also had a difficult time with the beginning of this book, but I'm glad I stuck it out. It is a powerful story that will stay with me for a while and was worth the time I spent reading it.

There's no doubt Dubus is a good writer, but I'm not sure he's a good story teller. The lives of these characters intersect at various points but their lives are not really entwined so I found it hard to pull the whole thing together as one narrative. It's like reading a separate story of each and every character...separate planets spinning in their own orbits who intersect with other orbits sometimes. Sometimes that intersection produces a change in the other's orbit, sometimes not, but each is still quite alone. Ultimately I enjoyed most of the writing (some of AJ's constant brain-spinning and the repetitiveness of Bassam's background was skippable) but in the end it felt fragmented and unsettling. Perhaps that was the point.

Andre Dubas has to be one of the most gifted writers of today. This book was off the top but you have come to expect this after his "House of Sand and Fog.' Two of the best books I have ever read.

Lacy Hatchell

I also am one of those people who read this book based on Stephen King's review in EW. Needless to say, I won't be reading anything again on Stephen's recommendation. The beginning started out good and quickly went downhill from there. It was boring. I had to force myself to finish it. It is rare for me to not enjoy a book. This is one of those rarities.