Aug/Sep 1998 Book Reviews The Last Resort Alison Lurie
Random House, 1998 321pp
ISBN: 0-7011-6713-0 This is Alison Lurie's first novel for ten years, but she has not lost her touch. All that has happened is that her characters, like many of her readers, are ten years older. They now have grown-up children, a different perspective on life, and new, and not always comforting, prospects before them. Lurie is as acute as ever in her observation of human nature. We recognise her characters as particular "sorts" of people whose behaviour we think we can predict. They are almost, but never quite, stereotypes, and half the pleasure of Lurie's novels is in being allowed to play amateur psychologist, share her characters' thoughts, and see how illogical people can be. Wilkie Walker [not a very inspiring name] is a successful environmental scientist, and a world-famous writer and naturalist. Wilkie is seventy and no longer "flavour of the month", as his new, young lecture agent brashly tells him. Wilkie's friends and contemporaries are mostly retired or dead, and Wilkie thinks he has bowel cancer. Jennie, Wilkie's wife of twenty-five years, is forty-six. She is used to being regarded as a "walking anachronism", and being patronised or attacked by feminists, because she has happily devoted her life to looking after Wilkie and helping him with his work. She loves Wilkie and he, in turn, is devoted to her and shares all his thoughts with her. But Wilkie does not tell her about his health problem, and he resolves to commit suicide before his condition becomes a painful burden to both of them. This secret changes him, and Jennie suddenly finds that Wilkie is acting strangely. He hardly speaks to her and she has no idea what can be wrong. | |
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