Last Call (Ballantine Reader's Circle) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pedersen's third novel (Beginner's Luck; Going Away Party) takes a darkly comic look at a serious subject. After being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer, 55-year-old Hayden MacBride decides to take control of his situation by plotting his final days. An irrepressible Scotsman now living with his daughter, Diana, and her 11-year old son, Joey, in Brooklyn, Hayden crashes funerals and stockpiles suicide pills ("they can fell a rhino in five minutes," his dying friend, who made them, whispers) in preparation. Hayden's approach changes, though, when he meets a kindred spirit who is railing noisily against the injustice of her inoperable lung cancer. Her name is Rosamond Rogers, and she's the exact opposite of Hayden's beloved late wife. But Hayden takes a shine to her, and convinces her to ditch the hospital and join him and Joey at a baseball game, where he discovers that she's a nun. And so begins an unlikely romance. Challenged by her sudden loss of faith ("I've prayed all my life and now this," she wails), Rosamond decides that she can't return to the convent. Hayden invites her to live with him and, implausibly, she accepts. The unlikely piles upon the unconvincing, when Bobbie Ann, the prostitute next door, acts as a relationship counselor to a priest, who, with a little prodding from Hayden, decides to change careers and court Diana. If readers can suspend their disbelief-which might be hard-they'll find Pederson's latest offers many funny, tender and bittersweet moments.
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From Booklist

As she did in Beginner's Luck (2003), Pedersen teases comic and romantic possibilities from the unlikely collision of strong personalities. The hero of her moving and funny second novel is boisterous, bighearted Hayden MacBride, a middle-aged Scotsman living in Brooklyn with his divorced daughter Diana and her 11-year-old son. Hayden is dying of inoperable cancer, and despite Diana's pleas that he scale back his drinking and carousing in favor of vegetable juice and cheeseburgers made of ground sage, he's determined to squeeze as much joy as possible from his last few months. While visiting a friend in the oncology unit, Hayden meets Rosamond, a nun whose terminal diagnosis has caused her to experience a crisis of faith. When she confides to Hayden that she can't bear to return to her convent, he brings her home to Diana and Joey. Pedersen is especially gifted at portraying the way people unwittingly urge each other to grow and change, particularly in the delicate friendship that springs up between wry, irreverent Hayden and the unworldly Rosamond. A reading-group guide is included. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345461916
• ISBN-13: 978-0345461919
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #808,684 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Destined To Become Classics, March 21, 2005

By	Betty Cupertino (Ashland, VA) - See all my reviews

Hadn't heard of Laura Pedersen until the Virginia Book Festival. She did a wonderful and hilarious presentation and so I read BEGINNER'S LUCK and LAST CALL. They were very different novels, though both humorous, uplifting, and with enjoyable characters. The storylines were creative and engaging. The LAST CALL ending is a blockbuster -- won't give it away. Pedersen is young and writing a book a year -- the sequels to BEGINNER'S LUCK are coming out soon. I rarely write in reviews but I think this author is bound to become a classic in women's fiction, of the feel-good variety (rather than doom and gloom), and will continue to be enjoyed by young and old readers for years to come. I guess she will always be classified as an author of women's fiction and pitched to reading groups, but there are some great guys in the books -- Bernard in BEGINNER'S LUCK and Hayden in LAST CALL, so I think men would enjoy the stories as well but doubt they'll ever pick them up based on the wonderful but somewhat feminine covers. I especially like it that she gives older female characters brainy, sexy parts, and doesn't relegate them to the backseat of the family car. Hollywood will no doubt be calling soon if they haven't already. Looking forward to more.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Original, March 15, 2005

By	Alice Secrest (Toledo, OH) - See all my reviews

I enjoyed BEGINNER'S LUCK and was surprised that LAST CALL was such a different book. However, I thought it was a terrific meditation on life and death and very funny at times. The author continued to surprise, rather than repeat the previous novel just because it was a success. I thought the part about Hayden musing on people just wanting to live their lives without having to worry about madmen with guns said a lot about the current political situation. Same with Rosamond being Catholic and Hayden being Agnostic. Pedersen was obviously trying to show how we must make greater efforts at dealing with and understanding different faiths in order to survive. To me, Hayden's grandson represented the future, and all of our children and grandchildren, living in a better world, created by people like the characters in the book -- willing to question and think, but also slaves to human emotion and the desire to have meaningful relationships. The book also explored patients' rights, and what sort of control individuals should have over their care. I'm in the healthcare profession and agree with Hayden in that the patient can become sidelined in the rush to try new treatments, create new drugs, and overbill.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny & Original, June 8, 2004

By	Lyle Kendrick (Birmingham, Alabama) - See all my reviews

Terrific characters, great dialogue, original story. I read this book in two days and didn't want it to end, though the last few chapters were excellent. It's rare that you come across a new plotline in fiction, but this definitely succeeds in originality. Could it happen in real life? Maybe, but probably not. However that's why I read fiction and go to movies. My guess is that this book will remain on the favorites shelf at the bookstore for a long time. If you're a staunch Catholic then some of it may seem offensive, but by the time you reach the end you realize it's not at all, just questioning our faith the way most people do in real life.