Last Night

by Brendan Lemon

Jack Webster will, more than likely, die tomorrow. In the hot Cuban morning, his life will be eaten away by bullets from a firing squad, punishment for the murder of a teenage boy. Late at night, alone in his cell in a decaying Havana prison, the young American begins to write a letter. In impassioned fragments, he struggles with his own memories to create an accounting for his young Cuban lover that will cut through the lies the two have been forced to tell about each other, and that will help Jack himself reach a state of clarity, if not peace. As his final night slides with terrifying speed towards morning and death, Jack's letter becomes a longer and longer search, as much to find vindication as to explain how a passionate and spontaneous love-begun with such promise in an embassy party in New York and brought to full realization in the complex mix of tensions, repressions, and celebrations of Castro's Cuba-devolved so completely into a stew of obsession, jealousy, violence, and death. As Jack struggles to justify himself to his beloved Garcia, a realization breaks simultaneously with the dawn, a realization that might allow him a measure of final peace, if he only had the time to understand it more fully. Rich in language and vibrantly evocative, Webster's remarkable narrative as imagined by first time novelist Brendan Lemon captures with aching clarity and sensuality the universal drama of love won and lost. Marketing
National Village Voice Literary Supplement, Bookforum, Rain Taxi, Ruminator Review, The Advocate, Out, Bomb
Review coverage including gay and lesbian, mainstream and alternative media
Author Los Angeles, New York
Advance reader copies Brendan Lemon is the editor in chief of the Out , the nation's largest-selling gay and lesbian magazine. The former cultural editor for The New Yorker, he lives in New York City.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2002

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am divided about this book - it is well written and the subject is topical - but the two protagonists left me cold. The young American is ridiculously accepting of the ongoing American embargo of the island. He seems to have no knowledge or interest in Cuba outside of his desire for the young Cuban from the exalted, if tiny circle, of the politically and thus economically privileged elite. The young Cuban is even more of a cipher and no real thought or examination is given to what it means to be a member of the ruling caste, particularly if it is a communist one. He is someone enjoying chances and opportunities forbidden to the rest of his countrymen and neither he nor his American lover have any problems with this. If he was the scion of a family of privilege in a right wing oligarchic country I am sure that his character would have been treated differently. No doubt the whole novel would have been different. For me this is the great flaw - clearly it supposed to be an important examination of important themes such as what are the loyalties that are owed, what compromises can you make and still be true to oneself - but when everything else is so unexamined - I couldn't help feel that more issues were avoided the tackled in the novel.

It may be unkind but I found the young American annoying, clearly we were meant to sympathise with him but he lives a life where he has never thought of anything but himself and honestly most of his thinking is not done with his brain.

This novel was a disappointment and an opportunity missed and what is worse the author seems to imagine the novel is a great deal more profound then even a more kindly reviewer then I would consider it.

[Daniel Browne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings about this gay entry to the 'Thelma and Louise' genre. It is an interesting and reasonably original story, and Cuba always makes an enticing locale for a love affair, tragic or otherwise. However, the author's literary device of a 250 page book written as a letter free-hand from a prison cell isn't really working for me. It emphasizes the imbalance between brief descriptions of the action and lengthy emotional indulgences. Even if one is open-minded to the artistic license, it leads to some confusing narrative points of view. I also felt underwhelmed by how the ending was handled, which I won't elaborate on at the risk of spoiling it for other readers.

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring. Shameful. Not worth your time or money