Customer Reviews

The Last Girls

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Can events experienced early in women's lives really have an effect, either constructive or noxious, on the rest of their lives? This is the primary question address by author Lee Smith in her novel The Last Girls.

In 1966, five Southern college "girls" take a rafting trip down the Mississippi River. Now, 30 years later, they have come together once again to re-enact that fateful trip. The primary difference is that on this trip their mode of transportation is a luxurious steamboat and their primary reason for coming together is to journey to New Orleans and scatter the ashes of one of their fellow rafters, "Baby". As the steamboat trip progresses each "girl" (Harriet, Courtney, Catherine and Anna) reminisces about their days at college, the choices they have made over the ensuing years, and the influence Baby has had on each of their lives right down to the dreams they have either pursued or abandoned.

The raft trip appears to be a metaphor for the trip of discovery that each of us experiences as we "sail" through life, complete with the detours taken in an attempt to avoid crashing on the rocks, the effects of a rough trip on our perceptions, and the enjoyment experienced during those periods of smooth sailing.

Lee Smith has managed to capture the essence of what many women experience as they grow older. At some point each one of us explores the memories that have been tempered by time, revisits all of our youthful desires as well as acknowledging the compromises we've made, have accepted the reality of life while continuing to enjoy the fantasy world of romance novels, and ultimately we have searched for an answer to the question of the relevance of our lives.

I am a huge fan of Lee Smith and I loved Saving Grace and Oral History and so I was eager to read the Last Girls, especially because I read that it was based on a real experience in Smith's life (a raft trip down the Mississippi with college friends in homage to Huck Finn). I was terribly disappointed with how stock each of the characters turned out to be. They are more "types" of an early sixties coed than real women. There is the society princess, the future librarian, the girl who does not quite fit in and so remakes herslf to suit the circumstances and, of course, dwarfing them all in their colorless lives: the beautiful, the tragic, the talented and the promiscuous Baby.

The best part of the book comes at mile 364.2. This whole chapter is about Catherine's third husband Russell Hurt, an attorney who drinks more than he should, loves his wife deeply and well and has a peculiar fascination with the Weather Channel. He is funny, likeable, flawed and, at least in this one chapter, the most fully realized character in the whole book. It is worth reading just for Russell.

I always enjoy Lee Smith's novels and The Last Girls was no exception. Finished it in less than 24 hours. However I kept getting the feeling that the book was written in a hurry, or at least edited in a hurry. There was at least one mispelling that I noticed, inconsistant time references, and (as one other reviewer pointed out) several minor characters had the exact same traits or backgrounds. Though I enjoyed the story, I kept getting caught up in these details and had a hard time focusing on it. I hope that I had just purchased the early edition, with these errors being corrected in a second printing, but I did find this rather disappointing.

The characters didn't seem particularly close when they were in college, much less some 30 years later when they hadn't kept up with each other at all. I must have missed something. I can't imagine why Good Morning America recommended this read for a male book club. There are certainly better stories about women out there.

I grabbed this novel because it was written by Lee Smith, whose previous Southern novels (most of which I've read), I've liked and learned from. This new one is a complete departure, and I wondered at first if it had been too long since I'd read a Smith novel, or whether the book really was that badly written--and decided, soon on, that yes, to me, it was embarrassingly poorly structured and written, one of the worst novels I've read in quite awhile.

I agree with everyone who has mentioned not caring about the characters; I didn't either, and in fact, disliked most of them, except Harriet, who is the most developed and 'real.' Baby, who the book revolves around, is such a stereotype and it was hard for me to understand why she was so charismatic in college (but also why, except for Harriet, she was so little mourned by the others). The other 'girls' I found it hard to empathize with, though I'm of this same time period myself; I also wondered why Catherine was even in the book (she had so little to do with Baby in college, it seemed), and didn't see the point of her husband, Russell, present on this 'memory' trip either--nor did I like having to read about his background. This was to be a 'girls' trip, so why is there a male along?

The stories of the 'girls' are SO skeletal, so lacking in detail--this just isn't the Lee Smith I've known, who has written such memorable novels of Appalachia and the South, where I've usually learned something about Southern religion, say, or Appalachian music or the like. In this novel, I had hoped the setting of the Mississippi River would be more prominent, that I'd learn more about it (nope! almost nothing). Or that there would be interesting points of tension between the four women who hadn't seen each other since they were college roommates. But there's little conversation between them, let alone any development of the 'girls' meeting as women after a long absence, and the theme of friendship never evolves--or what does is cliched and empty.

Well, I found the whole book cliched and shallow, not at all thought-provoking nor good storytelling. I read it quickly, just to finish it, and was so sad, wondering what had happened to Lee Smith (or where her editor was) & felt I'd wasted my time and money. I would say to other would-be readers, give this book a wide miss, but don't give up on Smith--try her 'Devil's Dream' or 'Saving Grace' instead.

After reading Oral History I knew I was on to a great writer. Lee Smith does not short change us with this new novel. Her characters are women we all know and depending on your age, have probably grown up with. Her talent at weaving tragedy with humor is on full display with The Last Girls. This novel makes those of us in middle age re-think the choices we've made and the opportunities we might have missed. However, the way Smith writes it with humor and grace keeps the novel from becoming a downer. I agree that Lee Smith is not only a southern treasure but a national one too. It is to the point where I read not only her books but also books she provides comment on. Some good ones I've found thanks to her reviews on the covers are Moon Women, A Place Called Wiregrass, and Clay's Quilt.

Although I'm a little older than "the last girls," I lived in the world they came from--a women's college in Virginia--in the mid-1950s. I could identify with all of them in one way or another. Lee Smith has done a marvelous job of "writing about us," the women who came to maturity before the world changed so dramatically with the arrival of the civil rights movement, the women's movement, and the war in Vietnam.

And for the reviewer who talked about "rights of passage," may I point out that the term is "rites of passage." Women of my age and a little younger went through a lot of those rites during our college years, and for most of us the rite of marriage was the one we sought most. We, like the girls in the book, had no idea what life and marriage would bring us in the years ahead.

I've been a Lee Smith fan for years. I pre-ordered this book and when it arrived I saved it "as a treat" for several days. And a treat it was! Once I started reading it I could hardly bear to put it down. Then a woman friend of about my age borrowed it and we spent hours on the phone comparing notes about the passages that affected us most deeply--and there were several. Now I'm listening to Lee Smith read it on CD, and finding nuances I missed in reading it--the story becomes more aand more compelling as I hear it spoken.

Lee Smith is amazing. In her deceptively simple style, she offers up remarkably complex characters and stories that stay with you long after you finish reading. Her intuition and humor and generosity are evident on every page. Her fiction has always sprung from a deep place in her...whether it is an account of a mountain evangelist, or in the case of The Last Girls, the story of four college friends who recreate a trip down the Mississippi after thirty-some-odd years. This latest offering is rare because its time frame is contemporary, and it's interesting to see that her strengths are undiminished in writing about women we immediately recognize and identify with. I have always liked Lee Smith's books, and have consistently turned my friends onto her work. I am an addictive reader, and am always struck by her particular voice, which is unlike any other writer's I know of: an unpretentious, intelligent and honest telling of stories, with an easy wit and poignancy. The portraits she draws are almost anthropological in their mining of culture and incident -- I always learn something. The Last Girls is no different. Read this, and everything else you can get your hands on that she's done: Oral History, The Devil's Dream, Fair and Tender Ladies, Saving Grace...they are all varied and worth your time. [...]

Lee Smith's The Last Girls is everything I ever want in a book, but so rarely find. I've given this book to friends and neighbors and my book club will read it next month. It is pure perfection.

The "girls' of the book are bravehearted, robust women who take one life-altering journey down the Mississippi River when they are in college--but who later take very different journeys. The book retells the story of their wild ride as they come together and fall apart, say goodbye and meet again. It is smart, funny, sassy, poignant and one helluva good read. The Last Girls is the sort of book that you want to press into your mother's hands to say, "I understand you now." It's the book you want to give your daughters so that they might live more fully and completely. It's a book you want your friends to read so that you can retell your own journey together. More than anything, it is a book that makes you want to LIVE. Utterly compelling, like the great Mississippi herself!

After reading this book, I am fully ready to take a cruise down the Mississippi. I never realized how expensive or luxourious they could be. Smith does just an exceptional job of describing the setting of this story. You feel like you are on the riverboat and at college with these girls.
We begin the story with a look at how the girls who made the trip down the river in the 60's are doing now. Harriet is an "old maid" schoolteacher, Courtney could be the poster woman for Southern living, Anna is a successful writer, and Heather is an artist. They have all 4 come together to spread the ashes of Baby, one of the original rafters. As we look at their lives now, we also see their lives as they once were. Not only in college, but growing up as well. We see where they came from and what they became. But not all of them have fond memories of the one they have come to bury. While Baby was an exciting person in their lives, she has also caused each girl some kind of heartache and bad memories.
The 4 women are now trying to take a break from their lives and reconnect with each other after having not been in touch for so many years. Their memories are funny, touching, sad, and heart wrenching. As a southern girl I really connected with the characteristics of most of the characters. I felt that I was right there with them on their cruise into "self-discovery" and into New Orleans.
The reason I gave this story a 3.5 out of 5 is because I just felt that it dragged a little too much. In the middle I got very restless and just felt that I was on a plateau. The beginning was great, the ending was okay, but the middle was just a little lacking. I would definitely read another by Lee Smith again and hope that I am transported into the story like I was in this one!