Customer Reviews

Last Light over Carolina

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Last Light Over Carolina by Mary Alice Monroe is a salty sea tale of Bud Morrison, a longtime captain of a shrimp boat, and his wife of over 30 years, Carolina Brailsford on the day he suffers a debilitating injury at sea. Over the course of the day, memories of Bud and Carolina reveal the heady first years of their marriage interspersed with the prime of the shrimping industry. As the day unwinds, so does their marriage as the shrimping business takes a hit for the worse with the influx of foreign shrimp.

Carolina is portrayed as intelligent, hardworking, and committed to her marriage. Bud seems to be drawn ever farther away with the Miss Carolina just to make ends meet. Bud and Carolina seem to be a team that thinks it is working together only to be drifting ever farther apart. But through it all the beauty of the ocean and their love for each other will eventually lead them to safe shores.

By the time divorce is considered, I alternately wanted to cheer for Carolina and conk some sense into Bud. The ending is all encompassing and painted on the broad South Carolina shores. I had a big lump in my throat and tears in my eyes with the most satisfying conclusion. There had to be a majestic ending for a story that just gets bigger as it goes along.

Last Light Over Carolina can proudly sit on your shelf with Treasure Island, Kidnapped, Mutiny On The Bounty, and Moby Dick. The story is involving, gritty, dramatic and altogether well written. It is highly readable and memorable and gets my big thumbs up.

I first found out about this author when I ordered the wrong book. I meant to order The Beach House by James Patterson and instead ordered The Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe. She pulled me into that beautiful book and I've been a fan ever since.

I also grew up near Charleston, so I'm familiar with the area and the traditions. She never ceases to make me remember something. This book was no different. From the talk of Hurricane Hugo (I was 14, it's been nearly 20 years, but I remember almost every detail of those 2 weeks of insanity after it hit) to her uncanny ability to make a specific place a character, she always brings me back.

I now live in Austin and when I start to feel homesick, I know I can pick up her books and be there again. Her description of McClellanville, of the boats, of the smells, of the shrimp, of the people... they all draw you right back to the docks of the coast. The town and the boats - they all became vivid characters for me. I remember driving down to the docks and buying shrimp off the piers as a kid, I remember seeing the men unloading the haul. I remember seeing the boats trawling off of the coast while we were at the beach. My point? This woman has talent!

The book itself is amazing. I found myself laughing, crying, wishing, being angry and then crying all over again. The storyline is a beautiful homage to the lives of the family of shrimpers. It's not an easy life and many don't end well. Bud and Carolina, Josh and Lizzy are proof of that. They are characters, but I bet there are people just like them that could attest to how difficult of a life it can be.

The flashbacks were so well done, following Bud and Caroline's journey - it was the perfect way to do it. The ending left me scared until I realized there was another chapter (oh, thank goodness, there's that bow that I like my stories all tied up with!).

Thank you, Ms. Monroe... for bringing me back to the lowcountry. My momma always taught me to be polite, so really - a heartfelt thank you for your writing. It never ceases to make me feel at home again.

I have followed Monroe's work for some years and have seen it deepen and mature from book to book. Her sense of place and relationships has always been sure and her depiction of the emotional states of her characters both sensitive and deft. With Last Light Over Carolina, Monroe once again draws attention to issues of vanishing resources and ways of life, describing the life of Shrimpers through both the female and male voice to great effect. She explores the differences between new love and a mature love with penetrating insight and brings each of her characters to a truer understanding of how they are complicit in their own downfall. There is greater suspense in this book about whether Bud and Carolina or Lizzy and Josh with their new-found understanding of themselves and their relationships will have an opportunity to change their lives. I think readers will find the conclusion to Last Light Over Carolina as emotionally satisfying and richly rewarding as the entire read. Pick it up, give it to a friend, tell others--you'll all be happy you did.

I had the pleasure of reading Ms. Monroe's last book, Time Is a River, and enjoyed it quite a lot. Last Light over Carolina has some similar themes--marital infidelity, soul searching, a traumatic illness or event, and a strong female character--but I didn't find these themes explored quite as successfully here as in her previous book (or perhaps it was just that this story wasn't as good a match to my own interests).

Last Light explores the decline of the shrimping business in the low country of South Carolina. For generations, families in that area have lived off the proceeds of their shrimping boats but, as more shrimp is imported, less local shrimp is being purchased. As a result, these families aren't able to make a living on the water anymore. Most of them don't know any other way to make a living.

Bud and Carolina Morrison, the book's main characters, are at heart good people whose marriage is strained by their economic situation and by Bud's pride. I enjoyed the Carolina character and understood that it is difficult to keep a marriage (or even a friendship) close when one of the pair is away for months of the year and away many hours of the day even when in home port.

I disliked the way Bud and Carolina's story is told via the use of frequent flashbacks. Every time one of them reflects on a past experience, we jump into the way-back machine and off we go to relive the past for several pages. While I completely understand that knowing what Bud and Carolina have been through in the past helps the reader better understand what is happening in the now, I felt that this device was tremendously overused. In fact, after multiple flashbacks, I started to hear Wayne & Garth (in their infamous Saturday Night Live sketch with Madonna) in my head, parodying the ridiculous way in which TV and movies often transition to these flashbacks (the fade-out with wacky music).

The real strength of this book is in the love between these two people and in the traumatic event that occurs in the last half of the book. The last quarter of the book, as this event comes to a climax, was tremendously tense and exciting--without question, the best part of the book in my opinion. If only the entire book had carried more of that level of passion, emotion and excitement.

Mary Alice Monroe is quickly becoming a favorite of mine - I thoroughly enjoyed "Time is a River", and now, here she is again with a good one - "Last Light over Carolina". Monroe very deftly handles what happens in one day in the life of Carolina Morrison - with flashbacks to flesh out all that she is feeling - all the things that are happening around her. She delivers a setting that one can see and smell, and characters that are real. Love that pluff mud!

I took my time reading this one, as I was enjoying the experience and really didn't want the story to end, as much as the suspense was building all the while as to how Bud Morrison could possibly survive his life threatening dilemma.

I find all the most important aspects of an entertaining read in Monroe's books - she manages to transport me to another place, she gives me characters I can indentify with and care about, and she moves the story along at a pace that makes the pages turn. Bravo, Mary Alice - you've done it again!

I love the characters. What a heartfelt story. My daughter just finished it and went around to each family member and kissed and hugged us!!! It certainly makes us appreciate our loved ones. kg

I am rating this a 3 only because -- for some reason -- I didn't like the characters so much. I finished the book but it was a hard read for me. I love Mary Alice and Karen White books...and always tend to rate 4 - 5 stars. However, I just didn't like hearing so much about the shrimping industry. Hope this helps someone deciding on what to buy/read....Try Beach House first and Swimming Lessons, the sequel. Both are 5 stars

Living in a quiet little fishing community, I thoroughly enjoyed the similarities in this story. Easy to read; hated to put it down. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view, I think it is a true picture of life in a fishing community.

As always, Mary Alice Monroe has captured the feel of the place about which she writes, and captured this reader once again. I hated to put the book down, and wanted to read far into the night. Another thoroughly entertaining work by this author.

I have read some of the bad reviews of this book and I just don't get it. This novel is about real people with normal jobs and lives. This is the story mostly about shrimp and the being a shrimp captain. This is something I never knew anything about or had any interest in, but now when I eat shrimp it will make me think. It is also a man's love for the sea and his family. The heroine of the story is named Carolina and the love she has for her husband is real as and shows the problems many couples go through. It is not a fairytale that most of the romantic writers put into their books. These are average people with money problems, just like most Americans. They do not have the fairytale ending of becoming millionaires. After reading years of Danielle Steel and many others this is such a nice surprise.

You read through the pages feel the bad economy and how it has affected the town that they live in and the realties of working hard and making ends meet. The best part of the book for me were the two main characters working to save their marriage and finding out what really matters to each of them. This is a refreshing novel that makes you smile and glad that you took the time to read it.