One Last Thing Before I Go [Kindle Edition]

Jonathan Tropper (Author)

Book Description

The bestselling author of This Is Where I Leave You returns with a hilarious and heart-rending tale about one family's struggle to reconnect.

You don’t have to look very hard at Drew Silver to see that mistakes have been made. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. He lives in the Versailles, an apartment building filled almost exclusively with divorced men like him, and makes a living playing in wedding bands. His ex-wife, Denise, is about to marry a guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter Casey has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down. 

 

So when he learns that his heart requires emergency, lifesaving surgery, Silver makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to use what little time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment, even if that moment isn't destined to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving.

 

With the wedding looming and both Silver and Casey in crisis, this broken family struggles to come together, only to risk damaging each other even more. One Last Thing Before I Go is Jonathan Tropper at his funny, insightful, heartbreaking best.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The richly talented Tropper ("This Is Where I Leave You") has created an acerbic, middle-aged lost soul who will ultimately illuminate the reasons we stick around on this lopsided planet despite significant temptation to let it go. Readers will love Silver and want to throttle him in equal measure. Eminently quotable, hilariously funny, and emotionally draining, this arresting tour de force will entertain well after the book is done." -"Library Journal "(starred review)

About the Author

Jonathan Tropper is the New York Times bestselling author of five previous novels; Plan B, The Book of Joe, Everything Changes, How To Talk to a Widower, and This Is Where I Leave You. His books have been translated into over twenty languages. He is also a screenwriter, and the co-creator and executive producer of the HBO/Cinemax television show Banshee (produced by Alan Ball), premiering in 2013.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 482 KB
• Print Length: 335 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1409127737
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (August 21, 2012)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007HU7R20
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,220 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Should I stay or should I go? August 21, 2012

By switterbug TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Silver is forty-four, a former drummer with the one-hit-wonder band, The Bent Daisies. After the front man/vocalist, Pat Mcreedy, left them and went solo, they tanked, dried up, and disbanded. Now Silver is a notch above broke, and his ex-wife, Denise, is about to get married to the doctor who wants to perform life-saving surgery on him. But Silver is about the most passively suicidal guy you may meet in fiction.

Barely scraping by, Silver lives on his royalty checks from the song, "Rest in Pieces," or plays Bar Mitzvahs and weddings, when he can get a gig. Mcreedy's career is epic and glitzy, and he sleeps with sexy celebrities. Silver hangs out with a group of losers in the tatty Versailles apartments, where they scope out young daisies in bikinis and nod off at the pool. In between, they make weekly deposits at the sperm bank to supplement their income.

Tropper has a knack for combining flippant with rueful to achieve sharp and piercing. His leading men are Jewish, middle-aged, overweight, and emotionally adolescent. This book and the last one--This is Where I Leave You-- have titles that underscore absence, departing, and abandonment. There's as much death cloud as sex haze in the atmosphere. But there's at least one compelling reason to keep Silver onward through the fog. Or is there?

The only person who seems to need Silver right now is his eighteen-year-old daughter, Casey. But only because she's afraid of disappointing her mother with the news that she's pregnant. So she tells her dad, whom she sometimes calls Dad, but often calls Silver. She's a combination of spiky and vulnerable, and her presence makes you root for Silver to wake up from his numbed slumber and be the strong and able support that she needs. The scenes with Casey are often the most tender and fragile.

"Mom and Rich got me a G35 for my graduation."
"That was nice of them."
"Mom's still compensating for you. I milk it a little."
"I would. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Why'd you come to me?"
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"I care less about letting you down."

This isn't the side-splitting, laugh-out-loud humor of the last book, but is just as witty and cinematic. The movie rights have already been spoken for, which may bother some readers--that it has a filmic presence to it. (I think of Adam Sandler, and would be surprised if anyone else plays him in the movie.) However, the snappy dialogue and supple visuals are fresh and acute with its bent sense of humor. Silver keeps accidentally thinking out loud, which may be the most gimmicky aspect, although it is nuanced gimmick, if you will. There's a hint of customized formula, but with an edge to it, and some loose ends that feel right.

My husband and I have an eighteen-year-old daughter, and--don't shudder--we found aspects of this book therapeutic and and highly relatable. It's madcap at times, improbable, and sometimes too clever. And yet...and yet...it's about ordinary people trying to redeem themselves, to make sense of their place in the world, confront their shame and cowardice, and to love their children without too much toxic spillover. Sometimes we need a mop and a bucket to clean up our messes--and a spark from a quick, funny, savage, messy, poignant yarn about a guy who thinks out loud.
4.5 stars

11 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of Jonathan Tropper's Best Novels August 26, 2012

By Joseph Landes

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a huge Jonathan Tropper fan and to be honest my biggest regret is that he doesn't publish books more often. But when he does come out with a new book, I immediately purchase it and set aside time to read it in one sitting because that is how good his books are. "One Last Thing Before I Go" doesn't disappoint. It very much follows Tropper's other novels in that it focuses on the life of a man pretty much down on his self-made luck who has made more mistakes that you can count in a lifetime and is not determining the path forward.

Here we are introduced to Drew Silver--a former rock star (drummer) whose band broke up many years ago and whose marriage followed soon after. He has been living at an apartment complex filled with divorced and separated men. His ex-wife Denise has been living with a doctor and is close to getting remarried while his only daughter Casey is about to go off to Princeton and finds out that her quick summer fling has resulted in her being pregnant. And if that is not enough, "Silver" as he is called by everyone one day blacks out and when he awakes finds out that he has a heart condition that if not operated on soon will cause him to die--his doctor by the way is Denise's beau. The story follows a somewhat predictable but incredibly fast-paced road that focuses on Silver's decision to have or not have this surgery. He is to a large extent fed up with his current life and is just as happy to die and end it as he is to continue it.

This book gives the reader detailed insight into the life of single, divorced men, the struggles they and their families go through, and how they all cope. I was moved by the scenes showing Silver and Casey trying to figure out how to live together as daughter and father after so many years of his absence from traditional family life. There were some heart-wrenching (and cringe worthy) scenes where Silver's sickness gets the best of him and he starts mumbling out loud thoughts that were better left in his head.

I strongly recommend Tropper's latest book and have a hard time believing it would not be considered for the New York Times Notable Books of 2012.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Some editorial inconsistencies October 8, 2012

By bjm gator

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book has some shining moments, even some laugh out loud moments. But my book club noticed that the characters have fairly glaring inconsistencies. Denise's mother dies at 13, but then is helping her try on wedding dresses. Her dad dies and then magically appears at her 2nd wedding. Did anybody else notice this? Is it only my Kindle version that is screwy? This were bothersome, and overall the book was just okay for me.

More About the Author

Jonathan Tropper is the author of How to Talk to a Widower, Everything Changes, The Book of Joe, and Plan B. He lives with his family in Westchester, New York, where he teaches writing at Manhattanville College.