Last Last Chance: A Novel [Paperback]

Fiona Maazel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2009

A Time Out New York Best Book of the Year

Named one of the 5 Best Writers Under 35 by the National Book Foundation

Includes an Author Interview and Discussion Questions

A lethal strain of virus vanishes from a lab in Washington, D.C., unleashing an epidemic--and the world thinks Lucy Clark's father is to blame. The plague may be the least of Lucy's problems. There's her mother, Isifrid, a peddler of high-end hatwear who's also a crackhead; her twelve-year-old half sister, Hannah, obsessed with disease and Christian fundamentalism; and Lucy's lover, Stanley, who's hell-bent on finding a womb for his dead wife's frozen eggs. Finally, there's Lucy herself, who tries to surmount her drug addiction and keep her family intact in this brilliant novel about survival and recovery, opportunity and apocalypse, and, finally, love and faith in an age of anxiety.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A sprawling debut with an alternately absurdist and sardonic tone, Maazel's debut follows the tribulations of Lucy, a young drug addict who works at a New York City kosher chicken plant. Lucy's father was a Centers for Disease Control bigwig who's recently committed suicide, presumably due to fallout from his perceived role in an outbreak of plague that is spreading across America. Her mother, Isifrid, is a crack-addled gazillionaire, while grandmother Agneth talks incessantly of reincarnation, and younger half-sister Hannah harbors a huge obsession with disease. As the novel opens, Lucy sets off with her alcoholic, over-50 co-worker, Stanley, to attend the wedding of her best friend, Kam—who is marrying Eric, whom Lucy met first and fell in love with. After some hijinks, Lucy heads to a rehab facility in Texas. Over the course of Lucy's wild road trip, Maazel, daughter of conductor Loren, delivers some electric writing: the novel is brimming with wit, ideas and delightfully screwball humor. But the whimsy undermines the story, especially on the abundant substance abuse material. The novel's earnest, surprising conclusion feels out of sync with the zingy, existential banter of its core. (Mar.)
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Review

"Crisp dialogue, brisk pacing, dark yet compassionate comedy . . . A remarkable feat of the imagination."--Newsday

"Moving, buoyant, and utterly true . . . Last Last Chance isn't your average novel, thanks in no small part to Maazel's funny, lacerating prose. . . . Maazel is such a fine, precise writer, she can convince the reader of almost anything."--The New York Times Book Review

"Maazel writes with a kind of ecstatic swagger--freewheeling and cocksure, intelligent and loopy and funny as hell."--Slate.com

"Lithe prose, crackling wit, and a deep appreciation for the absurdity, spirtual poverty, and occasional nobility of Americans in a time of extreme crisis."--Time Out New York

"Read this book now for the sentence-by-sentence brilliance of Maazel's inimitable voice. . . . Maazel was born in 1975, but her imagination has been on fire for a thousand years."--Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312428316
• ISBN-13: 978-0312428310
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #559,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars slow, bland, tedious, October 23, 2009

By 

Forest F. White - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Last Last Chance: A Novel (Hardcover)

This experiment with a fresh narrative voice is distracted. The main character is not sardonic, as most reviewers point out, but naive, which is reinforced by the lack of tangible details in any part of the narrative. This book is so barren of imagery that it begs the question as to why it wasn't simply a short story. If shortened, it might have held my interest. On the whole, it is a rather plodding journey towards an unsatisfying conclusion in a bland world devoid of any contrast or detail other than the characters. This might carry a short story. It doesn't carry this novel.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great debut novel. Can't wait for her next one., April 13, 2008

By 

Bill Warner (Collingswood, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Last Last Chance: A Novel (Hardcover)

The compelling fantasy about a plague epidemic and depiction of an eccentric and disconnected family make Last Last Chance a great read in their own rights. But Fiona Maazel's greatest strength is the voice she gives to her protagonist, Lucy Clarke. She is sardonic and desperate. She is devoted to family and trapped in selfishness. Maazel deftly portrays the ambivalence, yearning and hopelessness of addiction and the cynicism felt by many addicts as they dip their toes into the recovering community pool. The recovery as reincarnation analogy she makes is aptly drawn.

Don't let the description on the dust jacket fool you. The reincarnation espousing grandmother, pagan crack-head mother, disease and Christian fundamentalism obsessed sister, the lover seeking a donor for his dead wife's fertilized eggs all make it appear to be a novel filled with absurd, flat caricatures. In fact, Maazel gives each a rich, logical and sad inner life. Any absurdity is just on the surface. You will admire and care for each of these people, even if you despise some of their behaviors.

I disagree with Publishers Weekly's criticism of the book's conclusion. Without giving away details, I'll simply say that any change in "tone" is consistent with how Lucy's life was changed by outside forces and by how she adapts despite and because of and those events.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crazy, crazy world, June 18, 2009

By 

K. McClish "voracious reader" (Indiana, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Last Last Chance: A Novel (Paperback)

Be prepared to climb into a junkies head. The sentence patterns create this jerky, racing rhythm that really adds to the atmosphere and character of the narrator. The craziness compounds as the cast expands and you start to feel the destruction and loneliness of the main character, an amazing task for a debut writer.

I had moments of confusion, until I figured out what was going on, with some of the chapters that went into a mythological/supernatural realm. Be prepared to keep an open mind and move forward with confusion and willing to return and reread. I did not mind that the end wasn't a conclusion. But I did mind that the narration almost became mundane, losing the previous wit and zing. I understand that the events of the novel could explain this change but it was very abrupt. I wondered if this ending was a rewrite or edited down from a more substantial end.