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The Last Days of Ava Langdon
It’s been twenty years since Ava Langdon published her much-lauded novel The Apple Pickers, but today could very well be the day her genius is finally recognised again. Armed with a freshly completed manuscript, a yellow cravat and a machete, Ava strides out into the world in the hope of being published – and so the adventure begins. Despite being dismissed as an eccentric – or worse – by the world around her, and battling poverty and age, Ava’s internal world remains vivid; her purpose, clear.
Author Mark O’Flynn first learned about legendary Blue Mountains writer and recluse Eve Langley when he stumbled across her abandoned hut outside the small town of Leura. Though he moved on to other projects, Langley’s voice stayed with him: ‘Why did she change her name (by deed poll) to Oscar Wilde? Why the romantic preoccupation with her past? So little is known of her final days.’ O’Flynn’s fascination with her life eventually led to the creation of the irrepressible Ava Langdon.
Rich in wordplay and colourful anecdote, The Last Days of Ava Langdon is an intimate, witty and soulful conjuring of a once-great artist in her final days, which will leave the reader questioning – what passion would sustain you if everything was lost?
Author Mark O’Flynn first learned about legendary Blue Mountains writer and recluse Eve Langley when he stumbled across her abandoned hut outside the small town of Leura. Though he moved on to other projects, Langley’s voice stayed with him: ‘Why did she change her name (by deed poll) to Oscar Wilde? Why the romantic preoccupation with her past? So little is known of her final days.’ O’Flynn’s fascination with her life eventually led to the creation of the irrepressible Ava Langdon.
Rich in wordplay and colourful anecdote, The Last Days of Ava Langdon is an intimate, witty and soulful conjuring of a once-great artist in her final days, which will leave the reader questioning – what passion would sustain you if everything was lost?
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2016
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312 people want to read
About the author
Mark O'Flynn
23 books4 followersMark O’Flynn’s novel The Last Days of Ava Langdon (UQP) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2017. A collection of short stories, Dental Tourism (Puncher & Wattmann), appeared in 2020. His recent collections of poetry are Undercoat (Liquid Amber Press, 2022) and Einstein’s Brain (Puncher & Wattmann, 2022).
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May 4, 2017This book is such a gem. Ava is an unforgettable character. Similarly to Mrs. Dalloway, the novel follows a day in the life of elderly Ava Langdon, an eccentric hermit on the verge of publishing her next bestselling novel. Known as a general menace to everyone in town (possibly having something to do with the fact that she carries a machete and once chopped a library book in half with it, and that she enjoys crossdressing and pretending to be Oscar Wilde), Ava makes her own rules. As the book progresses, it’s increasingly clear that Ava is neither mentally nor physically stable. I really loved this book. It’s heartbreaking and hilarious. I can’t remember the last time I literally laughed out loud. O’Flynn writes such enchanting characters, and I’m so happy he brought Ava to life.
— Jan Rosenberg
from The Best Books We Read In February 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/02/28/riot-r...
— Jan Rosenberg
from The Best Books We Read In February 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/02/28/riot-r...
June 2, 2016
I was curious about this book after hearing the author speak at the Sydney Writers' Festival 2016. I was intrigued by this fictional biography and how the author managed to paint a picture of the life of this writer by structuring the book as one day. Great read, I could not put it down.
May 13, 2017
'The Last Days of Ava Langdon' is based closely on the life of Eve Langley, whose 1942 novel The Pea Pickers is an Australian classic, though hardly anyone these days has read it. (I haven’t.) As this piece on the Neglected Books blog will tell you http://neglectedbooks.com/?p=4288 Langley was a fascinating, troubled, iconoclastic soul who wrote as if her life depended on it but only ever had two books published in her lifetime. She ended her life as a recluse in a tumbledown hut in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, where O’Flynn himself lives. And this is where we meet Ava, dressed in her men’s trousers and braces, cravat, fur coat and solar topi, carrying her trusty machete in a holster by her side, off to town to post yet another manuscript to her long-suffering publishers. In the long day that is the novel she has many encounters: with a cheeky boy, an obtuse post-office attendant, a grieving widow in the cemetery, a stroganoff-obsessed diner at the soup-kitchen, a barman who’s never heard of Immanuel Kant, an unchristian priest, a policeman who doesn’t like her scaring children in the local park with her machete, a tree-surgeon’s assistant who knocks her over with his van, and the staff at the local hospital from which she escapes with great presence of mind when they talk about admitting her. (When the doctor asks what caused the wound in her leg, she says, “Time’s winged chariot”.) When she finally gets home she has an unexpected visitor who brings her past with him.
Ava’s imagination is always working on what she sees and hears – other people, birds, rats, trees, frost, railway lines. Snatches of poetry and new images are always flooding her mind. Rejected over and over, every time she posts one of her 400-page pink manuscripts she believes, like her alter ego Oscar Wilde,
"The age of miracles is not past. It has not yet begun."
Rambunctiously funny as it is, this is a tender, empathetic book. There’s great skill in the way Mark O’Flynn weaves the comical side of Ava, her wit and nerve, with the sadness of her past and the extremity of her need to write and to be recognised. She really is a voice crying in the wilderness.
These one-voice novels situated in an eccentric mind are hard to get right. O’Flynn does a beautiful balancing act between the close third person and the inner voice:
"Coat on, helmet on, bag over her shoulder, Ava leaves the warm, smoky hall and steps outdoors again. Again the pigeons erupt upward, settling on the low-hanging eaves of the library, place of betrayal and deceit. For a moment she wonders what pigeon tastes like. One of these days, you never know, it might come to that. She heads uphill beside the railway station and the underpass. It would be interesting to enumerate her steps, she thinks, count how many steps to the corner, but that would be pathological, like wanting to know how many lunches she’s had, and Ava is not pathological, no matter what they say. To mention the word stroganoff three times in the one breath, now that’s pathological. She is lucid and aware, on the verge of a new discovery. She just needs to clarify what it is without falling into the lava again." (108-9)
And as you see, it’s all in Present Tense, another thing that’s hard to do well. Here, it’s perfect.
Ava’s imagination is always working on what she sees and hears – other people, birds, rats, trees, frost, railway lines. Snatches of poetry and new images are always flooding her mind. Rejected over and over, every time she posts one of her 400-page pink manuscripts she believes, like her alter ego Oscar Wilde,
"The age of miracles is not past. It has not yet begun."
Rambunctiously funny as it is, this is a tender, empathetic book. There’s great skill in the way Mark O’Flynn weaves the comical side of Ava, her wit and nerve, with the sadness of her past and the extremity of her need to write and to be recognised. She really is a voice crying in the wilderness.
These one-voice novels situated in an eccentric mind are hard to get right. O’Flynn does a beautiful balancing act between the close third person and the inner voice:
"Coat on, helmet on, bag over her shoulder, Ava leaves the warm, smoky hall and steps outdoors again. Again the pigeons erupt upward, settling on the low-hanging eaves of the library, place of betrayal and deceit. For a moment she wonders what pigeon tastes like. One of these days, you never know, it might come to that. She heads uphill beside the railway station and the underpass. It would be interesting to enumerate her steps, she thinks, count how many steps to the corner, but that would be pathological, like wanting to know how many lunches she’s had, and Ava is not pathological, no matter what they say. To mention the word stroganoff three times in the one breath, now that’s pathological. She is lucid and aware, on the verge of a new discovery. She just needs to clarify what it is without falling into the lava again." (108-9)
And as you see, it’s all in Present Tense, another thing that’s hard to do well. Here, it’s perfect.
December 21, 2016
he Last Days of Ava Langdon is an affectionate homage to the Australian author Eve Langley, (1904-1974), but it’s also an homage to eccentricity.
In this generous and respectful fictionalisation of Langley’s life, there’s a boy who lives near Ava who taunts her each time he sees her. He calls her a nut case. That might also be the judgement of the Blue Mountains town where Ava lives in a hut on its outskirts, but author Mark O’Flynn contests that perspective with a portrait of a rich inner life, even if that life may have been compromised by the rudimentary and sometimes disastrous mental health services of the twentieth century.
The real Eve Langley was a significant Australian novelist and poet but little is known about her. She was born into poverty but used her experiences as an itinerant agricultural labourer as material for her most famous novel The Pea Pickers (1942). Today she might be a member of the LGBTI community, but in the twentieth century her cross-dressing and what may have been intersex confusion was interpreted differently : during her sojourn in New Zealand she married and had three children, but she spent seven years in a mental health institution there. Did Langley’s husband use her gender identity issues to commit her, or was it because of the conflict between her passion for writing and the domestic demands of being a twentieth century wife and mother?
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/06/09/t...
In this generous and respectful fictionalisation of Langley’s life, there’s a boy who lives near Ava who taunts her each time he sees her. He calls her a nut case. That might also be the judgement of the Blue Mountains town where Ava lives in a hut on its outskirts, but author Mark O’Flynn contests that perspective with a portrait of a rich inner life, even if that life may have been compromised by the rudimentary and sometimes disastrous mental health services of the twentieth century.
The real Eve Langley was a significant Australian novelist and poet but little is known about her. She was born into poverty but used her experiences as an itinerant agricultural labourer as material for her most famous novel The Pea Pickers (1942). Today she might be a member of the LGBTI community, but in the twentieth century her cross-dressing and what may have been intersex confusion was interpreted differently : during her sojourn in New Zealand she married and had three children, but she spent seven years in a mental health institution there. Did Langley’s husband use her gender identity issues to commit her, or was it because of the conflict between her passion for writing and the domestic demands of being a twentieth century wife and mother?
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/06/09/t...
October 5, 2016
Won this Through Goodreads First Read.
This fictional biography is based on the last days of novelist Eve Langley. Ava Langdon is an outcast living alone in a small hut near the woods. She is a writer who wears men's clothes, like to carry a machete and live her life as an isolated eccentric.
Mark has done an amazing job with this book. This intriguing story is both touching and humorous.
Told from Ava's point of view as she goes about her day in her judgmental Katoomba town. The book is divided into five chapters, taking place at different times in the day. The layout of this book was perfect as it moves between memories, interactions and the different perspectives of the towns people Ava comes across during her daily travels.
Fictional biographies can sometimes get weighed down by history and facts. What Mark has done with this book is bring the warmth of Ava to the forefront and it really pays off. I couldn't put this book down.
Beautiful, funny, touching and warm. The Last Days Of Ava Langdon is a must read.
Written by Geramie Kate Barker
https://gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
This fictional biography is based on the last days of novelist Eve Langley. Ava Langdon is an outcast living alone in a small hut near the woods. She is a writer who wears men's clothes, like to carry a machete and live her life as an isolated eccentric.
Mark has done an amazing job with this book. This intriguing story is both touching and humorous.
Told from Ava's point of view as she goes about her day in her judgmental Katoomba town. The book is divided into five chapters, taking place at different times in the day. The layout of this book was perfect as it moves between memories, interactions and the different perspectives of the towns people Ava comes across during her daily travels.
Fictional biographies can sometimes get weighed down by history and facts. What Mark has done with this book is bring the warmth of Ava to the forefront and it really pays off. I couldn't put this book down.
Beautiful, funny, touching and warm. The Last Days Of Ava Langdon is a must read.
Written by Geramie Kate Barker
https://gemsbooknook.wordpress.com
June 24, 2018
2.5 stars. Another well reviewed book that did not speak to me at all. I could not relate to the character Ava Langdon and felt nothing for her, except, perhaps, slight irritation. I understand she is an ageing eccentric writer, perhaps mentally ill, and it a portrayal of her perspective of reality in the last few days of her life, but the premise did not work for me. I did not enjoy the writing style either. It was one of those novels I simply could not engage with. Her experiences did not interest me, although it has made me mildly interested in the author it is loosely based on. I was looking forward to reading this novel, but after completing it I was left feeling rather empty. Not saying it is not a good novel; just not one for me.
October 16, 2017
I won't go into a precis of this novel, a fictionalised account of the last days of the almost unknown and very eccentric Australian author Eve Langley, others have already done that.
I didn't enjoy this one much. I don't like stream-of-consciousness writing, and it's even more tedious when it's coming from a quite addled mind and combines with a plot where nothing actually happens. Add to that language which is often ponderous - possibly by design - and it makes for a fairly dull read.
By the time I got to the end of the book I was finding it touchingly sad, but still not particularly engaging.
I didn't enjoy this one much. I don't like stream-of-consciousness writing, and it's even more tedious when it's coming from a quite addled mind and combines with a plot where nothing actually happens. Add to that language which is often ponderous - possibly by design - and it makes for a fairly dull read.
By the time I got to the end of the book I was finding it touchingly sad, but still not particularly engaging.
January 30, 2018
This is a very unusual book based on the life of writer Eve Langly. It only covers one day in her life but her whole life is encapsulated in the 24 hours that the novel is about. Ava is a recluse, living in a hut in the bush near Katoomba. She is obviously losing her mind and grasp on reality. It is well written but not an appealing book. I would not recommend it.
August 30, 2017
Excellent and compulsive read. Lovely sense of place and familiarity as we all spend the day with Ava. Really ticked off that we sold a genuine pith hat in our pre-move garage sale so, am off to get a pith helmet (but purple one) and a copy of The Pea Pickers. Mark O'Flynn well deserves his place on the Franklin Shortlist this year.
August 20, 2024
An interesting novel about the last days of an old woman, Ava Langdon, living alone in Katomba, Australia, in 1976. The inspiration for the character is taken from the life of Eve Langley, whose 1942 novel, ‘The Pea Pickers’ is an Australian classic novel. The author writes at the end of the book that this story is not a biographical representation of Eve Langley, particularly as little is known about Eve Langley.
In this novel it has been 20 years since Ava Langdon published her much-lauded novel, ‘The Apple Pickers’. She now leads a reclusive life in Katomba, in the Blue Mountains. Her two friends are rats who she feeds. The hut she lives in is out of the township and in poor condition. She continues writing novels. She has just completed her third novel which she has posted to her publisher. She had been married many years ago in New Zealand and had a son, Ilyich. When Ilyich was 8 years old, her husband put Ava in a mental asylum where she remained for seven years.
Ava is a unique, interesting, unpredictable, seemingly content character. She dresses in men’s clothes, carries a large knife in her belt and speaks French to the locals. She is a dedicated writer. A very readable, poignant, sometimes humorous novel.
This novel was shortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin award.
In this novel it has been 20 years since Ava Langdon published her much-lauded novel, ‘The Apple Pickers’. She now leads a reclusive life in Katomba, in the Blue Mountains. Her two friends are rats who she feeds. The hut she lives in is out of the township and in poor condition. She continues writing novels. She has just completed her third novel which she has posted to her publisher. She had been married many years ago in New Zealand and had a son, Ilyich. When Ilyich was 8 years old, her husband put Ava in a mental asylum where she remained for seven years.
Ava is a unique, interesting, unpredictable, seemingly content character. She dresses in men’s clothes, carries a large knife in her belt and speaks French to the locals. She is a dedicated writer. A very readable, poignant, sometimes humorous novel.
This novel was shortlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin award.
July 10, 2016
There is an aching beauty to the writing in this story ... a story full of warmth, humour and pathos.
It is a story that explores the acceptance, disdain and confusion of those who meet Ava and who are often unsure of how to react to her/interact with her; and, the flashes of clarity and self awareness, among the confused thoughts, of Ava herself, as she goes about her day in, and around, Katoomba.
Thank you UQP and Goodreads for the chance to read this wonderful book.
It is a story that explores the acceptance, disdain and confusion of those who meet Ava and who are often unsure of how to react to her/interact with her; and, the flashes of clarity and self awareness, among the confused thoughts, of Ava herself, as she goes about her day in, and around, Katoomba.
Thank you UQP and Goodreads for the chance to read this wonderful book.
January 8, 2017
Two things about this book really spoke to me; firstly the location- which is what made me pick it up in the first place. The streets and towns of the setting are very familiar to me, because I live in the Blue Mountains. But truly the intricate nature of the last day of Ava Langdon shines. Observations of those around her blend with memories of her past, building an emotional journey with a touching little ending.
June 25, 2017
3.5 stars, round up to 4.
January 10, 2018
This took some time for me to get into the story, and I found it a real struggle in the beginning. Am glad I persevered though, as I quite enjoyed it by the end
January 6, 2019
Whilst I thought the character interesting I really did not like the writing style. Could not go on.
March 24, 2023
"She circles the date on the calendar and scrawls 'Great day' beside it."
Ava repaired the bindings of books at a library position.
Overuse of the word "however."
Ava repaired the bindings of books at a library position.
Overuse of the word "however."
August 12, 2017
a brilliant little novel :)
October 29, 2017
Best book I've read in ages. Brilliant vivid writing to create such a wonderful character. Great sense of place in Blue Mountains towns.
December 7, 2017
Winner of the Voss Prize, this book is a beautifully poetic and whimsical tribute to Eve Langley,
August 14, 2016
This book is a fictional depiction of the last days (or day?) of Australian/New Zealand author Eve Langley, who was famous for dressing like a man, legally changing her name to "Oscar Wilde" and wielding a machete around the small town of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.
The premise sounded really interesting, but the book didn't really deliver for me. I found Ava as a character and her internal voice extremely irritating, which was unfortunate because the book is narrated in a stream-of-consciousness style. Very little actually happens - there isn't much in the way of a plot - and I struggled to maintain interest in the narrative, which I found slow and uninteresting. There are some nice passages towards the end and the book definitely improves as it goes along, but overall I felt underwhelmed.
Basically all this book succeeded in doing was making me dislike Eve Langley, which is sad because she sounded like an interesting person. I think I'll have to read one of her books and judge for myself. If you like the kind of stream-of-consciousness modernist-style novel where nothing much happens, you might enjoy this book, but it wasn't for me.
The premise sounded really interesting, but the book didn't really deliver for me. I found Ava as a character and her internal voice extremely irritating, which was unfortunate because the book is narrated in a stream-of-consciousness style. Very little actually happens - there isn't much in the way of a plot - and I struggled to maintain interest in the narrative, which I found slow and uninteresting. There are some nice passages towards the end and the book definitely improves as it goes along, but overall I felt underwhelmed.
Basically all this book succeeded in doing was making me dislike Eve Langley, which is sad because she sounded like an interesting person. I think I'll have to read one of her books and judge for myself. If you like the kind of stream-of-consciousness modernist-style novel where nothing much happens, you might enjoy this book, but it wasn't for me.
August 10, 2017
I have yet to read Eve Langley's The Pea-Pickers (1942) - it has been on my TBR pile for quite some time though. Reading O'Flynn's fictionalised account of Langley's last days has increased my desire to read it sooner rather than later.
In O'Flynn's story, Langdon's famous book is called The Apple Pickers. Her real life son, Karl Marx is re-named Vladimir Ilyich (yes, really!), but her alter ego remains Oscar Wilde. Both Eve and Ava changed their name by deed poll in 1954 to Oscar Wilde.
Ava is eccentric, mentally unstable and colourful. She would now be labelled as having gender identity confusion. O'Flynn uses flashes of clarity and flashbacks to earlier times to gently reveal her story. His writes with a great deal of affection, empathy and respect for his invented character and her real-life counterpart. Most of the time I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...
In O'Flynn's story, Langdon's famous book is called The Apple Pickers. Her real life son, Karl Marx is re-named Vladimir Ilyich (yes, really!), but her alter ego remains Oscar Wilde. Both Eve and Ava changed their name by deed poll in 1954 to Oscar Wilde.
Ava is eccentric, mentally unstable and colourful. She would now be labelled as having gender identity confusion. O'Flynn uses flashes of clarity and flashbacks to earlier times to gently reveal her story. His writes with a great deal of affection, empathy and respect for his invented character and her real-life counterpart. Most of the time I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Full review here - http://bronasbooks.blogspot.com.au/20...
December 15, 2017
I wanted to like this book. I enjoyed Mark O'Flynn's Forgotten World, and the familiar references to places in and around Katoomba were interesting. But as another reviewer said, the meandering stream of consciousness stuff is just not my style and although I appreciate the author's attempt to replicate the troubled mind of Ava Langdon, this book for me goes in the basket of 'trying too hard to win a literary prize'.
May 15, 2017
What sounds like it could be a slow story I'd brought to life via a brilliant, quirky, believable voice. I couldn't put it down.
September 2, 2019
I wish a detailed biography of Langley was possible, but this novel is an incredible imagining of what it could have been like to be her. It has many moments of strange beauty.
May 18, 2017
Ava Langdon is a writer, elderly, living in a hut in the forests outside Katoomba in the NSW Blue Mountains.
We spend a day in Ava’s company – through morning, elevenses, afternoon, evening and night. We meet her in her hut, living an existence that is not much above camping. Her provisions are low; she has makeshift furniture and makeshift cooking equipment. Is this some kind of post-apocalyptic world? Has Ava, alone, managed to carry on the torch of humanity?
The answer is no. It is 1974 and Ava seems merely to be eccentric. She is the weird old lady our parents used to warn us about. Today, though, we are going to see the world through Ava’s eyes, watching the small children being safely shepherded away. We are going to delight in her choice of pith helmet and golden cravat; we are going to admire her wit in putting waitresses and policemen in their correct places; we are going to marvel at her dexterity in deadheading agapanthus in the grounds of the Hydro Majestic at Medlow Bath.
I know the places well, and I remember the 1970s – although I have never seen them combined I can imagine it well. This was a time of greater innocence but, ironically, also greater violence. The health and safety laws had not yet sterilised our world and neutralised the threats. This was an age where people could be assaulted for liking the wrong music, so if you were strange in any way you were not going to meet with tolerance, let alone acceptance. Thus, Ava’s world view showed all the more defiance in the face of strong societal expectations.
It would be a shame to spoil the reader’s fun by detailing the many examples of eccentricity and the inappropriateness of her various exchanges and dialogues. Just accept that they are hilarious – and that you’ll be laughing with Ava as much as at her. You will see Ava’s perspective completely, be privy to her inner thoughts, but unlike a classic unreliable narrator you will also fully understand how other people react to her. There is no delusion, no trying to hoodwink the reader.
The title tells us that these are the last days of Ava Langdon. We are sad that the world is about to be robbed of one of its more colourful inhabitants; we understand also that for all the nonsense – for all the overblown experts of unpublished novels and doggerel rhyme – that Ava had a story to tell. Every chance encounter was a potential novel, destined to be typed onto pink paper and sent off to an unreceptive publisher. Ava’s life reaches back into a bygone age; it is over; and apart from ten copies of both of her published novels, Ava has precious little to show for it. Her tragi-comic life has not been a success.
Ava Langdon is fictionalisation of Eve Langley, a long forgotten writer. I have her magnum opus, The Pea-Pickers, on my shelf unread. This novel will definitely inspire me to read it.
We spend a day in Ava’s company – through morning, elevenses, afternoon, evening and night. We meet her in her hut, living an existence that is not much above camping. Her provisions are low; she has makeshift furniture and makeshift cooking equipment. Is this some kind of post-apocalyptic world? Has Ava, alone, managed to carry on the torch of humanity?
The answer is no. It is 1974 and Ava seems merely to be eccentric. She is the weird old lady our parents used to warn us about. Today, though, we are going to see the world through Ava’s eyes, watching the small children being safely shepherded away. We are going to delight in her choice of pith helmet and golden cravat; we are going to admire her wit in putting waitresses and policemen in their correct places; we are going to marvel at her dexterity in deadheading agapanthus in the grounds of the Hydro Majestic at Medlow Bath.
I know the places well, and I remember the 1970s – although I have never seen them combined I can imagine it well. This was a time of greater innocence but, ironically, also greater violence. The health and safety laws had not yet sterilised our world and neutralised the threats. This was an age where people could be assaulted for liking the wrong music, so if you were strange in any way you were not going to meet with tolerance, let alone acceptance. Thus, Ava’s world view showed all the more defiance in the face of strong societal expectations.
It would be a shame to spoil the reader’s fun by detailing the many examples of eccentricity and the inappropriateness of her various exchanges and dialogues. Just accept that they are hilarious – and that you’ll be laughing with Ava as much as at her. You will see Ava’s perspective completely, be privy to her inner thoughts, but unlike a classic unreliable narrator you will also fully understand how other people react to her. There is no delusion, no trying to hoodwink the reader.
The title tells us that these are the last days of Ava Langdon. We are sad that the world is about to be robbed of one of its more colourful inhabitants; we understand also that for all the nonsense – for all the overblown experts of unpublished novels and doggerel rhyme – that Ava had a story to tell. Every chance encounter was a potential novel, destined to be typed onto pink paper and sent off to an unreceptive publisher. Ava’s life reaches back into a bygone age; it is over; and apart from ten copies of both of her published novels, Ava has precious little to show for it. Her tragi-comic life has not been a success.
Ava Langdon is fictionalisation of Eve Langley, a long forgotten writer. I have her magnum opus, The Pea-Pickers, on my shelf unread. This novel will definitely inspire me to read it.
April 24, 2018
The book's central character, Ava Langdon, and the book's story are, as Mark O'Flynn tells us in his 'Author's Note', "... a thinly disguised fictional version of the Australian writer Eve Langley ... [and her] last days or months or even years, as her mental health deteriorated in her hut in the Blue Mountains." As such, it's a fictionalised imagining of how Langdon/Langley lived the end of her life - mostly alone and in reduced, even squalid, circumstances. O'Flynn is a published poet and so it is no surprise that Ava's life is presented in acutely-observed and sensuously-wrought language; and, this, I think, is both a strength and weakness of the work. For the first half of the book I felt that the rich metaphors slowed the narrative at times, bogging it down in detail that prevented, rather than enhanced, my gaining of the reader's relationship with the character of Ava. Certainly it gave a thorough insight into the disorganised thinking and degraded existence of the character but I began to appreciate Ava much more when she left the hut and began to interact with the people and places of the Blue Mountains. As she wends her way through the real-life landmarks of the mountain town of Katoomba to deliver her latest manuscript, 'The Saunteress', to the post-office for dispatch to her publisher (a manuscript that, perhaps, the publisher has neither requested nor will be pleased to receive) we see Ava herself as a "saunteress" in her own life - directionless, ambling and rambling - and she becomes much more interesting. O'Flynn builds on this, interspersing Ava's sauntering with pathos and humour. Throughout, O'Flynn does a wonderful job in portraying Ava's positive, unshakable spirit and fierce intellect, and he deftly weaves touching glimpses of her past into the narrative. By the end, I was very sad to see Ava go.
May 7, 2017
The Last Days of Ava Langdon (UQP 2016) by Mark O'Flynn, recently longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award, is a story set over one day, featuring the fictional writer Ava Langdon, a character loosely based on the real Australian artist Eve Langley. Like Langley, Ava Langdon lives in isolation in a hut in the Blue Mountains (where the real Langley died a hermit in the seventies, her body undiscovered for three weeks). Langdon is a maverick, an eccentric woman who dresses as a man and even changes her name by deed poll to Oscar Wilde. She carries a machete by her side at all times and befriends the rats that forage in her hut. The locals see her as odd, not knowing what to make of her strange behaviour. She attacks books in libraries, bothers children and is prone to bouts of shouting and unpredictable acts. She is also a writer, although with more of a collection of unpublished than published pieces. She spends her days in a rather confused condition of semi-madness, wishing she inhabited the life of another. Her past is littered with failed relationships: she spent many years committed in a psychiatric institution, and has lost touch with her children. She is a recluse who doesn't mind her own company. This book is very clever, literary and poetic. It also occasionally features sharp, acerbic wit, a kind of gallows humour of the 'you've got to laugh or you'd cry' variety. O'Flynn has done his homework with regards to the details of Eve Langley's biography, and the result is a raw but respectful homage to that writer's personal anguish and impoverished circumstances, and to her literary achievements, but more importantly, to her literary aspirations and thought processes.
December 18, 2019
This book is a mad thing. More a recount of events than a formalised story, it is difficult and altogether not that satisfying.
I would give it three stars; But the difficulty is the consequence of what it portrays and if the book wasn't difficult then it would truly be a failure. The incoherent raving of Oscar Wilde a.k.a Ava Langdon, displaced in time mixed up and frayed. Ava's thoughts are at once confused and sharp, jumping from speculation from others thoughts, vast in it's vocabulary and quibbling over metaphor; it is an intimate, personal, and essential voice. We are transported to the interior of Ava's mad head. It is this difficult transportation, into a foreign land which makes the book worth reading.
I would give it three stars; But the difficulty is the consequence of what it portrays and if the book wasn't difficult then it would truly be a failure. The incoherent raving of Oscar Wilde a.k.a Ava Langdon, displaced in time mixed up and frayed. Ava's thoughts are at once confused and sharp, jumping from speculation from others thoughts, vast in it's vocabulary and quibbling over metaphor; it is an intimate, personal, and essential voice. We are transported to the interior of Ava's mad head. It is this difficult transportation, into a foreign land which makes the book worth reading.
July 16, 2017
This novel was inspired by Eve Langley an author who lived in the Blue mountains in NSW at the end of her life.
This book made me smile and laugh with a melancholy heart. Ava or Oscar was so beautifully realised by the author, Mark O'Flynn that I was totally captivated.
However Ava's incandescent energy made you observe darkness through the light. The shadows of mental illness and disconnection from her family making you aware that there is more to this story.
A delightful bittersweet read. This book is short listed for the Miles Franklin award & I wish the author Mark O'Flynn well with this dazzling novel.
This book made me smile and laugh with a melancholy heart. Ava or Oscar was so beautifully realised by the author, Mark O'Flynn that I was totally captivated.
However Ava's incandescent energy made you observe darkness through the light. The shadows of mental illness and disconnection from her family making you aware that there is more to this story.
A delightful bittersweet read. This book is short listed for the Miles Franklin award & I wish the author Mark O'Flynn well with this dazzling novel.
June 29, 2017
This was an interesting book and it's not till you're well into it that you realise the little gems it contains. It is another in the Miles Franklin longlist for 2017 although this particular book has made it to the shortlist! Based very loosely on the life of Eve Langley, you really get into the character of "Ava". Is she mad? Crazy? Or perhaps as sane as you or me? I'll let you read it and find out.
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