The Last Resort

by Alison Lurie

The Last Resort Lurie, Alison

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Book Club, The United States Of America, Own

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Alison Stewart Lurie was an American novelist and academic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. Although better known as a novelist, she wrote many non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.

Reviews

[Berengaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I'm a big fan of the fluid way Alison Lurie wrote, her observational sense for choosing the exactly correct detail to set a scene (difficult!!), and how she crafted characters I feel I can reach out and actually touch.

Although her subject matter is largely outside of my own sphere of reference, I find myself always wanting to come back to her work.

This one falls somewhere in the middle for me.

The title "The Last Resort" is very apt, as the subject of this light comedy is aging, death and the way we choose to lead - and leave- our lives. It's a bit dated as the AIDS epidemic of the 80s & 90s is a big topic, but that fits very much into the theme.

In fact, it might fit too much into the theme.

While Lurie is very much on solid ground with the antics of Dr and Mrs Wilkie Walker and cohorts, the parallel plot lines involving the Key West B&B gay scene seemed out of place. As if writing about the impact of AIDS on a gay community was a way of including not just seniors in the "facing the end" theme, but much younger people as well (no ageism here!).

Unfortunately, the inclusion doesn't mesh well into the Lurie fictional universe, I thought. It was like reading a book about the social behavior of elephants... only to suddenly discover entire sections about how to change the oil in your car.

Or maybe I was just wanting typical Lurie academics and for her to leave the Key Westers as side characters. Still, her treatment of homosexuality and homosexual attraction is kind, supportive, and for my money, mostly realistic.

"The Last Resort" is a good Lurie (not a great one), but one that strays somewhat from what she does best.

[Anni · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another of my Alison Lurie re-reads, which I actually prefer to her acclaimed first novel ‘Foreign Affairs’. I love her ironic observational comedy of manners which
punctures the social mores of the time among the middle-class academics and arty types - especially their self-regarding condescension (what is known nowadays as ‘virtue- signalling’).

This bitter-sweet, deceptively frothy depiction of the prevalent culture in Key West, Florida, is unsentimental in its coverage of the sorrows and indignities of ageing and the loss of loved ones, as well as the follies of romantic entanglements when time is running out.

As one of the characters in the novel says, Key West is called the last resort “not just because it was at the end of the Keys, but because it was where you went when other places hadn’t worked out.”
But the title equally applies to the sense of coming to the end of the road in life. In this sense the comedy turns into farce when the husband of the main character - the selfish, and disagreeable famous environmentalist - is thwarted by several botched attempts at suicide by drowning.

It’s a novel which resonates with modern times, with situations as humanly relevant as ever.

[Eugenea Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the things I enjoy about Lurie's books is the background and insight that each provides for characters that populate other books--e.g., this one fills in the blanks about Chuck Mumpson of "Foreign Affairs". But "The Last Resort" is much more than that, and much more than many of the Goodreads community reviews I read. To me, this book is about how its diverse and complex characters, who scatter along a continuum of age, health, and experience, confront their own mortality and their need for meaning in their lives, no matter how much is left or under what conditions--from Jacko, who is young and beautiful but has been diagnosed HIV-positive, to Molly, an elderly artist whose arthritis is limiting her ability to express her creativity, to many more on the same quest for meaning. Aren't we all doing the same?

[Cam · Rating 2 out of 5]

lurie reduces one of the most famous literate locales and flamboyant towns in the u.s. to a bunch of lukewarm, two-dimensional characters doing a lot of tepid, uninteresting things. (spring 2004)

[Pauline]

Très chouette, très drôle ! Un peu frustrée par la fin mais bon, c’était il y a 25 ans quoi.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather odd book in that it deals with rather depressing themes (aging and suicide as a possible way out) but mixes it with a not very convincing lesbian romance. Convinced that he has colon cancer, Wilkie Walker, once a very successful author of books about nature, accepts his wife's suggestion of a winter in Key West because he assumes he will find it easy to drown himself there without his survivors suspecting suicide. Needless to say, all his attempts are thwarted in one way or another, and then he learns that all he is suffering from is piles. However, while he is concentrating on his exit scheme, the big-hearted lesbian next door seduces his wife Jenny. I was not altogether persuaded that an old-fashioned wife like Jenny would make such a transition all that easily, and most of the other characters, like brainless Barbie, were much too cartoonish for my taste. Not sunny enough for light fiction and yet not sharp enough for the kind of serious comedy I expected from Lurie.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

If characters aren’t particularly likable, it’s fine by me as long as they are interesting or compelling. But when these unlikable characters are also stereotypical and dull—so dull, in fact, that they constantly utter monosyllabic responses like “Mhm,” “mpfh,” “Mrf,” and so on—and when their story, set in Key West, ignores any sense of place whatsoever, that is most certainly not fine. I am mystified by the book’s positive reviews, unless they represented lingering good will toward Alison Lurie’s previous accomplishments. I picked it up while in Key West because I wanted to remain there in my mind when I returned home, but the palm tree bookmark that came with it did a better job!

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel badly saying this, but: this simply isn't a brilliant novel, compared to Lurie's best-known book, Foreign Affairs. It must be terrible to write a really wonderful novel, win a Pulitzer prize for it, and then have every subsequent novel pale in comparison. Having said this, The Last Resort is a diverting read, a bit disconnected--some of the characters seem to have been forcefully developed solely in order to put the main characters into motion--but worth a week or reading time.

[Bumblesmom · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good read, almost as good as a murder mystery. It just wasn’t my cup of tea. I appreciated the fine writing, which caused me to continue reading to the end. I just prefer wittier or more upbeat stories.

Maybe I didn’t really glom into it because it’s a standalone novel. I won’t be reading about these characters again. (Definitely not; the author has died.) I do like getting to know characters better, and it would have been interesting to read more about Jenny and Lee, I particular.

[Lucy Burdette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the Key West setting very much. But for me, the multiple points of view made it difficult to connect with the characters

[TreforL · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having already enjoyed two of Alison Lurie's novels, I awarded myself the chance to read this one as a kind of treat. She is superb at portraying the mores and antics of the arty academic elite while whispering behind her hand how her characters' actual feelings and motives contrast with the ones they display.

This time her protagonist is Jenny, wife of a curmudgeonly professor and (much less convincingly) celebrity naturalist. She has been unfashionably happy to devote her life to Wilkie as his wife, administrator, researcher and sandwich-maker general when his attitude towards her turns cold. He has a secret: he thinks he is dying from colon cancer and plans to kill himself.

Hoping to get things back to normal, Jenny takes him from icy New England to tropical Key West, where we meet a parade of colourful characters and the comedy of manners gets going. As elsewhere in Lurie, there is a coy sub-plot involving Jenny's feelings for another woman.

Plot-wise, it's all rather inconsequential as the pleasure lies in the telling, which is not to say it doesn't drag in the middle.

This reminds me that other Luries were also strongest at the start and in their incidental behavioural observations. They are good fun and you never lose much if you skim through the boring bits.

[David]

Ageing, illness--especially AIDS--depression, friendship, Washington image politics, and gender bias all play significant roles in this one. Lurie seems to have a sensitive ear for what her peer group says and thinks about getting old. There is a lot of sadness in this one, though it is, ultimately, more optimistic than not.

[Melinda Christensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jenny is married to a much older husband, to whom she is cloyingly devoted. He is famous writer and naturalist, Wilkie Walker. She has raised his children, researched and edited his books, and is always willing to do more. As winter draws near, however, Wilkie becomes depressed and withdrawn from her. Jenny persuades him to visit Key West which she considers the last resort. He is not happy there, but Jenny blossoms, getting a part-time job and becoming involved with the locals, which include Gerry, a beatnik-type poet, and Lee, the devastatingly beautiful manager of a guesthouse (women-only). Meanwhile, Wilkie stays home planning his own "accidental" drowning death.

The author developed her characters superbly, however, I didn't enjoy this book because of the situations Jenny gets herself in.

[Judi · Rating 3 out of 5]

If we could give half stars, I'd rate this book 2.5.. half way between "it was ok" and "I liked it." I wanted a trip to Key West and I like the version that Alison Lurie gives us. Her observations of tourists and tourists who become residents strikes me as so true... I see it where I live now and have seen it in places I've lived before (I like living in places in which the population has high and low seasons.)

"...shops and restaurants were crowded with adults dressed like children at play, in colorful shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, and sandals. Their garb was the outward sign that for these few days or weeks they were free to enjoy and indulge themselves, like kids on vacation."

"More serious consequences faced those tourists who did not go home, who enjoyed the freedom and pleasure of Key West so much that they stayed on longer and longer. What happened then, inevitably, was that these temporary children started to grow up. They bought property, joined volunteer organizations, took jobs, invested in some local business. As homeowners, workers, or proprietors, they began to view tourism from the other side. When they saw plastic debris washed up on the shore, or homeless people sleeping in alleys, they had the impulse to do something about it. They began to take positions on local issues; they not only read the local papers but wrote to the editor. Some became active in politics, or even ran for office. They agitated to save the reef, change the zoning laws, and permit cruise ships to tie up on Mallory Dock more often or never."

So, this perspective of Key West is more from those who stay than from those who visit. The story set up is this: Wilkie Walker, a famous naturalist writer thinks he's dying and does not want to burden his younger wife with this information. He's been cold and uncommunicative to her even though all their lives together they have shared a great marriage, sharing his work and life. Jenny Walker suggest they go to Key West for the winter hoping to fix things in the marriage. Wilkie agrees secretly planning to use a long swim as a cover for suicide. So, of course, the visit to Key West does not improve things in the marriage since Wilkie becomes more withdrawn. Meanwhile Jenny meets one of the locals.... and we get a nice story about some of the people who live and some who visit Key West.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an easy,light read but the characters were not very appealing and the ending kind of fizzled. There were many times during the first 2/3 of the book that I wanted to scream "just kill yourself already!" to Wilkie Walker while hoping that his wife Jenny would miraculously develop a backbone.

[Jayne Charles · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really didn't like this novel. It started off okay, but rapidly degenerated into a series of events it was hard to care about. The one point to note is that this book features a character by the name of Barbie Mumpson Hickock, perhaps one of the more startling names in fiction, but a vapid character nonetheless.

[Wendy Ledger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew I shouldn't have had coffee ice cream last night at the Christmas party! I was lucky to have Alison Lurie's book to keep me company through the early hours of the morning. I love her voice. When I read one of her books, I feel like I'm in good hands. She is willing to explore both comedy and drama from one paragraph to the next.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

I had read Foreign Affairs years ago, and loved it. I always wished I could craft a novel the way Alison did. This is a sometimes funny, true to life novel about aging, love, marriage and what holds us together. I couldn’t put it down, finished it in three days while I was vacationing in, where else, Key West.

[M · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could. Not. Finish.

[Umi · Rating 3 out of 5]

light but nice

[Anne Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in the mid-1980's Key West, a comedy poking gentle fun at pompous environmentalists and marriage conventions.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel begins in a New England college town with 45 year old Jenny Walker worrying about her husband, the famous writer and naturalist Wilie Walker who at 70 years old is starting to act, well, like a 70 year old. Wilkie is feeling the effects of aging, the waning of his professional career and is convinced that he has cancer based on his rectal pain and blood in his stool. Jenny reminisces to when they met when she was 21 and Wilkie was 45, the age she is now when he was larger than life and she decided that she wanted to devote her life to him. Jenny suggests that they winter in Key West as a way to jolt him back to his real self. Wilkie agrees only because it would provide a way to carry out his secret plan to commit suicide, he decides that swimming far into the ocean would be a painless way to die for both him and Jenny.
The novel shifts to Key West. Wilkie has stopped writing which frees up time for Jenny. She ordinarily researches, drafts and edits his writing to the extent that editors and publishers think she should receive co-writing credit. Jenny's initial restlessness gives way to new friendships especially with Lee who owns a bed and breakfast in Key West. As Jenny starts to resent Wilkie more and more she starts working part time for Lee with whom she develops a mutual attraction.
Lurie introduces other characters into the novel; Molly, an 80 something widow who provides a common sense perspective to the often messy lives of her friends, Jacko, a gay gardner/caretaker who was recently diagnosed with HIV, and Jacko's mom, cousin and aunt who come to visit Key West, the mom to be with and support her son, the cousin to escape her philandering congressman husband and the cousin to scheme to get daughter back with the congressman and to get her hands on the estate that Jacko has inherited.
Especially effective in this fine novel, is Lurie's shifting of perspective and voice. A scene is told by one character and later another character recalls the same scene with a different emphasis and tone. Lurie is also great at dialogue with the internal observations from one of the participants. Molly's and Jenny's observations especially provide grace and class to the lives so nicely described in this novel that is well worth the read

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Last Resort" refers both to the geographical location of Key West (at the very end of the Florida Keys) and to its metaphorical significance as Jenny Walker's desperate solution to lift her husband Wilkie's mood. Why has the noted naturalist and writer lost interest in his life's work, and in her? For twenty-five years she has been his faithful amanuensis, secretary, housekeeper, lover and mother to his children, but now her solicitude seems to irritate him. Perhaps getting him away from the grim New England winter into the sunshine will do him good.

What Jenny doesn't know is that her much-older husband is convinced he's dying of cancer, and is figuring out a way to commit suicide in a way that will spare Jenny's feelings. Perhaps he can drown himself in Florida? So, while Wilkie trudges off to the beach every day to create a framework for his eventual "accidental drowning", Jenny becomes involved with the locals : an HIV-positive young gardener (and his family : his mother, domineering aunt and clumsy cousin), an aged artist, and above all: the attractive lesbian Lee, owner of a woman-only inn and probably the only person Jenny's ever met who is not impressed by Wilkie's decades-long fame as a champion of the environment.

And of course, things go hilariously wrong. Wilkie finds out that it's not that easy to commit suicide-by-drowning, Jenny finds herself pursued by an ex-hippie poet, and the clumsy cousin, well, manages to put her foot in it several times. Alison Lurie, who knew the academic and literary worlds well, skewers the pretensions of those milieus very neatly. This is perhaps not her best book, but it's definitely worth reading.

[Stven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I really don't know why, there is something about Alison Lurie's narrative prose that keeps me comfortably reading along. Four years ago I read The Truth About Lorin Jones and liked it immensely and resolved to read more by this author; it's taken me this long to get around to doing so. She's written so many books it was difficult to know where to take the next bite.

This seems to have been about her tenth novel, a couple of books after Lorin Jones, from 1998, and I found it to be a good choice for me in 2022. We are still, still, still waging the battles that the fictional environmentalist writer wearily pursues in this story.

"Greed, stupidity, waste, the exploitation and extermination of species, the destruction of the environment, it's happening now, you've got to do something about it! he had shouted for nearly fifty years, his voice growing weaker every year. Most people who heard him didn't give a damn."

And here we are in the valley of the shadow: still falling in love, still doing work, still trying to make sense of other people. Death is always the subtext, life always the narrative.

Some lovely characters in this book, some juicy dopes and stinkers, all engaged in an engrossing, enlightening, and highly readable sequence of events.

[Andrew Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Key West, this is a story about snow birds escaping the winter and the thoughts, loves, worries, anxieties and pleasures.

Lurie developed some great characters; they were all well formed and deep. Lee (the lesbian owner of the b and b), Jennie (the out upon wife of the famous naturalist), Wilkie (the famous naturalist in his dotage), Barbie (the put upon wife of a Congressman) as well as several others.

Not much happens but that isn’t the point. The thought that kept coming back to me was that all of these characters were constantly seeing the world through a single view. They couldn’t seem to even contemplate the thoughts of the other people around them. Even if they weren’t apparently selfish people they came across that way. I don’t know if this was deliberate by the author or not …

Unfortunately I felt the last chapter was weak - it didn’t really develop any sort of conclusion - but maybe they again was deliberate …

[reese gellman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my third Alison Lurie novel (The Nowhere City and Foreign Affairs were previous), and I truly enjoyed The Last Resort. It was a treat to catch character appearances from her earlier novels.

This book isn't a classic drama or mystery, but both keep the story moving. Lurie's novels always involve academics, which assures thoughtful dinner conversations across chapters and ruminating in a most "intellectual" way—which I'm a big fan of. The Last Resort's most significant theme is aging and facing mortality. Several characters face that an end is in sight and determine how to approach living when that fact is definite.

It's hard to dislike even the most frustrating characters because we're right alongside them in their heads. Lurie welcomes compassion in her style. There's a love story that I rooted for the entire read too. In case you need an extra push to try this book, pick it up for a summer read!

[Shelly Spiller · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seemed like it would be interesting. Key West, a man who wanted to fake his own death and a memorable cast of characters. Unfortunately the book just stalled. Wilkie Walker is a 70 year old who is convineced he has a terminal illness and wants to end it all. His younger wife Jenny is at a loss at his cold attitude and suggests that they spend the winter in Key West. Wilkie feels this is a good place to kill himself. After many stalled attempts, Wilkie finds he's not terminally ill and decides to have a second chance in life.... but it is too late for him and Jenny as she has found someone else.

The book really just went around talking about people and their every day lives. The characters really didn't develop. I'm not sure why Barbie was introduced to the story, she really served no purpose. No one liked her and she was just the whipping boy in the book.

[Nuria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un matrimonio recala en Key West para pasar al sol los meses de invierno. Él es mucho más mayor que ella, naturalista reputado, famoso aunque con ciertas ideas rancias. Ella, dedicada a sostenerle y colaborar en su carrera, lleva media vida a su sombra, aunque satisfecha. Esas vacaciones van a cambiar como se siente ella, al conocer a una mujer que le hace ver su valía y despierta partes de su personalidad sepultadas bajo las buenas maneras y las convenciones. Él, teniendo una grave enfermedad, planea su suicidio, mientras una brecha se abre en el matrimonio por su desapego y silencio.
Una mirada sutilmente ácida de la sociedad intelectual, del envejecimiento, y de la política, a través de Barbie, casada con uno y su ambiciosa madre. Hay personajes que quedan poco definidos y el final, abierto, me pareció un poco brusco e inacabado.

[Lucy Condon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book! After enjoying Foreign Affairs, Alison Lurie’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, I wanted to read more so chose The Last Resort primarily because it is set in Key West - a favourite destination of mine. Whilst the premise of the book sounds dark - renowned Professor from New England has a terminal cancer diagnosis but doesn’t want to tell his wife so suggests they winter in the sun in Key West where he plans to take his own life so his illness doesn’t become known or become too horrible - the book is filled with colourful characters, humour and light! Some of the scenes verge on the right side of farce and nothing happens as it should. Most of the characters have their issues and hangups but support each other in their Last Resort community. The writing is fabulous. Makes me want to plough straight through her whole back catalogue!

[Poornima Vijayan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh how I love Alison Lurie! 'The Last Resort' is a really good book, perhaps unfairly treated by a lot of people just because Lurie wrote 'Foreign Affairs'. Even Lurie cannot beat her own masterpiece.

The Last Resort is set in Key West, where a group of people have moved to, mainly because of retirement/old age. We have Wilkie Walker, a narcissist who now 71 cannot image living beyond his legacy. And Jenny, his doting/dutiful wife. They move to Key West to help Wilkie recover from what his family assumes is depression. Wilkie meanwhile is convinced he's dying and wants to end it all rather quickly- how about a downing at the beach?

Set among these characters are other colorful characters who give life to 'The Last Resort'. Lurie is brilliant.