The Last Resort: A Novel [Paperback]

Alison Lurie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

Like a loyal victorian wife, Jenny has devoted her life to her much older husband, the famous writer and naturalist Wilkie Walker, bringing up their children and researching and editing his best-selling books. But this year, as winter approaches, Wilkie is increasingly depressed and withdrawn. At her wit's, Jenny persuades him to visit Key West, the Last Resort. Within weeks of their arrival Jenny not only has a part-time job but is becoming involved with assorted local characters, including Gerry, an ex-beatnik poet, and Lee, the dramatically attractive manager of a women-only guesthouse. Wilkie, meanwhile, is planning his own "accidental" death by drowning-a task that turns out to be more difficult than he thought-and trying to avoid the attentions of a breathless young female fan.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Last Resort finds Alison Lurie in top, trenchant form following a 10-year hiatus from fiction. "Without sex and death," the author wrote in Don't Tell the Grown-Ups, "humans may become as angels." Suffice it to say that the term angelic suits none of her newest cast, all of whom come up against life's realities during one Key West winter. Lurie's singular ensemble is spearheaded by the much younger wife of famed naturalist and writer Wilkie Walker, who is convinced that the world is "going to hell in a nonbiodegradable plastic handbasket." When the loving, supportive Jenny suggests they repair from New England to Florida, she hopes that he'll at last be able to finish his book and, more importantly, that his erratic behavior will come to an end. Of course, she has no goal for herself, since she's spent all her adult life as custodian to the aging author and can envision no other existence. Fortunately, a chance encounter with the owner of the successful women's guesthouse will eventually suggest a far more satisfying one.

For the irascible Wilkie, the trip turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Convinced that he's no longer in ecological vogue and certain that he's suffering from cancer, he's finally free to plan a tragic swimming accident. Alas, each of his attempts is foiled: once he can't get rid of a hanger-on, and another time someone else has the audacity to kill himself, thereby stealing his limelight. What's worse, the man was suffering from AIDS, and Wilkie certainly doesn't want that sort of information to sully his own obit. The Last Resort is a hilarious--and merciless--look at social and sexual desire and literary reputation. Jenny is well aware, for example, "that to refuse to look at a writer's work is always a deadly insult," whether the writer is her husband or an ex-beatnik poet. As one character reasonably remarks, "You don't have to be intellectually brilliant to be a famous American poet. It's a handicap, sometimes. Innocent egotism, good looks, romantic sensibility, a thrilling speaking voice, and a nice little lyric gift, that's what makes it with the reviewers and the public."

Lurie is always keen to prick any human vanity or fashionable ism--and does so exquisitely. In addition to its infinitely satisfying ironies and indelible characters, The Last Resort, though far from Arcadia, offers up a serious call for us to seize the "bright full present" while we can. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

It's been much too longA10 years, in factAsince Lurie's last novel, and her new one, like her most successful previous outings, Foreign Affairs and The War Between the Tates, has a delightfully punning title. For the last resort, in this case, is that end-of-the-line city Key West, and it is also the suicide being grimly contemplated in the sunshine by celebrated naturalist Wilkie Walker. Wilkie, convinced that time has passed him by and that anyway he has cancer, has begun to be brusque with his beloved and ultra-loyal wife, Jenny. Determined to drown himself from a handy beach, he finds fate intervening with infuriating regularity. Meanwhile, Jenny, feeling abandoned, is beginning to taste the pleasures of lesbian love with Lee Weiss, a veteran earth-mother islander who runs a women-only guesthouse. Then there's handsome gardener Jacko, who has AIDS, his bumbling, animal-loving cousin Barbie and her ferocious mother, Myra, and ex-Beat California poet Gerry, who also has eyes for Jenny. Lurie puts her well-chosen cast through their paces with expert aplomb and with often hilarious and occasionally touching results. She is as witty as ever, if not quite as malevolent as of yore, and the novel is a perfect summer read: entertainment that is at once highly intelligent and mildly edifying. 35,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805061746
• ISBN-13: 978-0805061741
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,471,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not Lurie's Best, But Still A Fun Read, February 12, 2000

By 

WifeofBath3 (Hattiesburg, Mississippi United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Resort: A Novel (Hardcover)

Alison Lurie makes novel-writing look easy. And while that is not necessarily a good thing, this book makes enjoyable reading for a lazy Saturday. Lurie has a lot of insight into character, and she can paint a good picture of academics, writers, artists, and affiliated hangers on. She's also really funny in an understated sort of way.

One thing I noticed in this novel that I haven't noticed in Lurie's previous novels is her use of clothing to reveal character--hardly surprising for the author of a really good book on the culture of clothing!

Another thing to watch for in this and other Lurie book is references to her other novels. Lurie has Stephen King's habit--or he has hers--of placing sly little references to previous novels or having characters in one novel be connected somehow to characters in another novel.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun, rompish read, but what's wrong with that?, October 3, 1999

By 

Douglas A. Greenberg (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Resort: A Novel (Paperback)

People's expectations of Alison Lurie must be exceedingly high. This book is not going to change the world, provide people with the answers to life's Big Questions, or garner her another literary prize. It's a fun read, however, built upon a simple plot and a group of characters who are only partially developed. Light fare, true, but along the way, she manages to provide some trenchant insights into the human psyche; some of the episodes and passages are just plain hilarious. Overall, this is summer vacation reading fare, but a cut above the usual poolside novel.

The only aspect of the book that annoyed me was the portrayal of the Great Environmentalist Professor's much younger wife, who comes across as something of a ditz. A major theme here is that what this unfulfilled, underappreciated woman "needs" is another woman in a lesbian relationship. This is dubious at best, and detracts from the actual incisiveness of Lurie's depiction of the classic "faculty wife." Still, those who can accept something less than Nobel Prize material will likely find this a witty and interesting novel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Master of Small Ironies, June 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Last Resort: A Novel (Hardcover)

Alison Lurie's new novel is set in Key West, territory she first explored in "The Truth About Lorin Jones." "The Last Resort" centers on Jenny Walker, age 46, and her septuagenarian husband, Wilkie Walker, a celebrated nature writer and environmental advocate. Wilkie is convinced he's dying of cancer, a conviction he keeps from Jenny, ostensibly to spare her pain. He agrees to a vacation in Key West because he decides it's a good place to make his suicide by drowning look like an accident. Despondent over his predicament, Wilkie withdraws from Jenny and treats her with increasing callousness while he waits for his chance with the Key West tides. Jenny, interpreting his behavior as the withdrawal of his love, finds solace with Lee Weiss, a woman she encounters on the beach, and begins a love affair with her.

In the book's major subplot, another character facing death - Perry Jackson (Jacko) - deals with his family's reactions to his HIV-positive status. In the wake of a visit by his sympathetic mother, he is descended upon first by his hapless cousin, Barbie, who is in retreat from a failing marriage to a philandering right-wing Congressman, and Barbie's homophobic mother, Myra Mumpson, who is a sort of minor league Phyllis Schafly, bristling with bad faith and bad motives toward her family members. Jenny and Jacko's worlds intersect through Lee, Jenny's lover, who runs a women-only guest house in Key West and is an old friend of Jacko's.

"The Last Resort" is not Lurie's best novel. The satire isn't as pointed as in her other books, perhaps because she isn't quite sure what she wants to satirize. Wilkie is somehow too bland a character and his offenses are not quite bad enough to merit much of our scorn. Myra is too easy a target and Lurie seems to lose interest in her. Still, the book is a pleasure to read and has many of the virtues that Lurie's readers are familiar with: the ability to convey complex attitudes and emotions in a few deft words; a sharp e! ye for self-serving gestures and mixed motives; and a fine sense of social reality, of who people are in the world and how that affects the way they behave and what they can perceive and can't perceive in themselves and others. Lurie is the master of the small ironies that connect our lives. ( In addition, for old Lurie fans, there is the pleasure of spotting the connections between characters in this book and her previous books.)