Product Details
- Author: Andre Dubus III
|
- Binding: Hardcover
|
- Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
|
- EAN: 9780393041651
|
- ISBN: 0393041654
|
- Label: W. W. Norton
|
- Language: English
|
- Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
|
- Number of Items: 1
|
- Number of Pages: 384
|
- Product Group: Book
|
- Publication Date: 2008-06-02
|
- Publisher: W. W. Norton
|
- Studio: W. W. Norton
|
- Title: The Garden of Last Days: A Novel
|
Avg Customer Rating: 
Product Description: From the author of the New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection House of Sand and Fog—a new big-hearted, painful, page-turning novel.
One early September night in Florida, a stripper brings her daughter to work. April's usual babysitter is in the hospital, so she decides it's best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children's videos in the office, while she works.
Except that April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club for holding hands with his favorite stripper, and he's drunk and angry and lonely.
From these explosive elements comes a relentless, raw, searing, passionate, page-turning narrative, a big-hearted and painful novel about sex and parenthood and honor and masculinity. Set in the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed, it juxtaposes lust for domination with hunger for connection, sexual violence with family love. It seizes the reader by the throat with the same psychological tension, depth, and realism that characterized Andre Dubus's #1 bestseller, House of Sand and Fog—and an even greater sense of the dark and anguished places in the human heart.
|
Customer Reviews
Disappointed
I read this on the glowing recommendation of one S. King. Very disjointed, it never captured my interest and I would not recommend.
|
Disappointed
I quite liked his previous book, and that was the only reason I bought this one. It drags, and drags. I was quite surprised (maybe i'm naive) at the ending re: the foreigner and his mission. why was this even part of the story? I thought maybe it would take a diffferent direction than what actually happened, otherwise....what was the point? Thought about putting it down several times.....should have.
|
Homage to Larry Brown
It seems a lot of reviewers were disappointed, expecting a work like Dubus' previous one House of Sand and Fog. This book is different. It is dedicated to the late great author Larry Brown, and, frankly, reads like a Larry Brown novel, particularly Fay.
If you like novels about the gritty underside of life then this is for you. I thought the scenes with the Arab terrorist were particularly well done.
|
HUGE disappointment
Shocking that this was the same author as "House of Sand and Fog". I vehemently hated this book and the only reason I bothered was it was required reading for book club. I will be hard pressed to choose to read another book by Dubus in the future. What a waste of time.
|
Just okay
I, too, read this book on the strength of Stephen King's review in EW - also because of Dubus' earlier book House of Sand and Fog, which I thought was terrific. This book held my interest for the first three quarters. I thought the character development and story line were very well done and I found myself thinking about the characters when I wasn't reading the book. Then I started to speed read the chapters concerning Bassam - thought they were incredibly repetitious and just empty pages. Also hurried through the later sections with Jean and April. I guess I expected something that would bring all the characters together because of 9/11 but the story just faded away - although the book kept going for another 70+ pages.
|
|