The End of the Alphabet (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: Ambrose Zephyr, Zipper Ashkenazi, Old Jewry (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An abrupt death sentence given to a 50-year-old London ad exec forces an uneasy deliverance in Richardson's smartly setup, poignant tale. Given less than a month to live, Ambrose Zephyr, alphabet-obsessed since childhood, decides to spend out his last days traveling around the globe from A to Z. Ambrose and his wife, Zappora Ashkenazi (the couple is childless), begin in Amsterdam, viewing art by Velázquez and Rembrandt that has been significant to them in their loving marriage, and now looks wholly transformed. The two move between the sweet memories of past love and an unreal present, from Berlin to Chartres, the Great Pyramids of Khufu to Istanbul; when Ambrose begins to falter and they return home to their Kensington terrace flat. Reality and good manners demand that they inform their respective employers and friends of Ambrose's condition, while Zappora, a fashion editor attempting to keep a journal of the couple's last moments together, endures until the end. Richardson's tightly focused tale has panache, shadowed by a brooding suspense. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

What would you do if you found out that your life would end in 30 days? Set your legal and financial affairs in order and contact the people at hospice? Forgive your enemies and send loving messages to friends and family? Or would you take a trip, stopping at all the places in the world you have loved and all those you wanted to see but never visited?

When Ambrose Zephyr learns around the time of his 50th birthday that he has only one month to live, he makes frantic plans to travel the globe alphabetically from Amsterdam to Zanzibar with his beloved wife, Zappora (Zipper) Ashkenazi. These two people have been everything to each other for all the years of a quietly happy marriage. If he wants to travel at this time, she will go, wherever the journey takes them and whatever her own feelings may be: "Don't do this don't be this don't go without me don't go at all," Zipper thinks to herself.

Above all else this is a story about love, something longer than the alphabet and wider than geography. Although at first the travel theme may bring to mind such relentless late-life guides as 1000 Places To See Before You Die, the resemblance is superficial. Despite the book's title and some of its chapter headings -- "D" for Deauville, "F" for Florence, and so on -- this elegant, spare and beautifully written tale of Ambrose Zephyr's last journey is too delicate, witty and passionate to be ruled by alphabetical order or contained within any planned itinerary.

Things go wrong. By the time they get to C (for Chartres), Zipper longs for Paris, where she and Ambrose first met. She is haunted by a nightmarish inner alphabet: "E is for Eiffel's tower, standing in Paris. L is for London and home. Z is for Zipper. T is for terrified. H is for hopeless."

As they continue on, mistakes are made and connections lost: The travelers miss E (Elba) altogether; they never reach H (Haifa). K and J are altered, and transposed.

They do get to Paris. Their time together in that city is a blend of enchantment and apprehension as deftly and lightly created as a fine soufflé.

The surprise of this little book is not that it is poignant but that it is delightful: graceful, stylish, humorous, intelligent and lacking even the faintest whiff of sanctimony. Each page shimmers with life at its gentle, everyday best: always unraveling at one end of the alphabet or the other, laced with love.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Broadway; Reprint edition (September 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076792763X
• ISBN-13: 978-0767927635
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #226,187 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poetic, touching... , August 12, 2007

By	Robert Schmidt (Honolulu, HI & Logan, UT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The End of The Alphabet: A Novel (Hardcover)

The End of the Alphabet is a great title for this short novel. Ambrose Zephyr is obsessed with organizing his life about the letters of the alphabet. Whether his name influenced that obsession, I don't know. But A.Z. meets and marries Z.A. (Zappora Ashkenazi). I wonder about the potential names of future children (there aren't any).

"Healthy" Ambrose is given a hard prediction. He will live for no more than 30 days. What is a man to do? What is a wife to do? What is a couple to do!

They decide to travel, inspired by the alphabet.

Author C.S. Richardson switches back and forth between man and woman, past and present, thundering toward a conclusion you know is coming but yearn for an alternative ending. Both A.Z. and Z.A. are nice people, with a good life. Is this unfair? Yes, but endings are endings, in life and in stories.

Well edited, nicely formatted, and poetically written, this is a pleasant novel to read, although you will be finished in less than two hours.

It is a reminder to finish life fulfilling your dreams. Remember this.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome Book, August 27, 2007

By	Nancy Grisso "Stepfordmomto2" (Tehachapi, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of The Alphabet: A Novel (Hardcover)

This small book will be one of my all time favorite reads. I can't describe this book adequately because it is one of those books that depending on where you are in your life - you will get a different meaning. Ambrose Zephyr a fiftish year old man who is suddenly diagnosed with an unnamed illness that will cause his death in 30 days. He has spontaneously decided that he will take his wife, the passion of his very simply ordered life, Zappora Ashkanazi (ZA to his AZ), also known as Zipper, on a trip that will encompass all the letters of the alphabet. As they travel the story goes back and forth from their present adventure to their life before the diagnosis and how two people can see the same thing in different ways. When the end comes, and it is inevitable, what story will Zipper have to tell.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Left me wanting more, April 16, 2007

By	D. Bannister (Calgary, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The End of the Alphabet (Hardcover)

This is CS Richardson's first book although the back flap tells us that he is a very well regarded book designer and has won numberous awards. As a first book I enjoyed it. I reminded me in the writing of Steve Martin's Shopgirl novella.

The novel follows husband and wife Ambrose and Zipper as they travel the world in a whirlwind of urgency to make up for lost time. It is a book about love as much as loving however it left me wanting more for it seemed to me that there were huge aspects of their lives that were left unexplored. As I read I longed to have more flesh and soul. I wanted to know more about the characters' history and their inner lives but that was all but impossible in the short 150 pages.

Mr Richardson is an excellent writer and this is a worthy first effort. His prose while utilitarian is not so sparse as to render unbelievable and unsympathetic characters.

But he does need to give us more. I only hope that in his subsequent books he treats us to more of his talent.