The Last Beach Bungalow

by Jennie Nash

Overview

A poignant novel about a woman who survives breast cancer, only to struggle with what comes next: living.

After five cancer-free years, April Newton should be celebrating, but instead she's restless. She feels her husband slipping away, and though the spectacular, stylish house he's building for her should be a fresh start, April finds herself wanting something more. As their move-in date approaches, she becomes obsessed with winning the right to buy the last bungalow in Redondo Beach, convinced that the quirky, lived-in little house represents comfort, completeness-everything she is missing in her life. And though her quest for the bungalow will take some surprising twists, it may put back together the pieces of her heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780425219270
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/05/2008
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jennie Nash is the author of two books of narrative nonfiction. The Last Beach Bungalow is her first novel.

Editorial Reviews

In Nash's winning debut, a long illness and mastectomy have put April Newton's life on hold for five years, and have made her and husband Rick practically strangers in and out of bed. As they prepare to move into the Redondo Beach, Calif., house Rick designed for them while she was still in treatment-with their teenage daughter, Jackie, in the throes of her first love-April's eye strays to a classic nearby beach bungalow being offered in a contest by an eccentric widow, who asks: "What would you give-besides money-to live here?" Under the guise of a shelter-magazine assignment, April tours the house of a sort that has all but disappeared, and meets its owner, who, for reasons of her own, promises to let it go below market to the most deserving applicant by Christmas. For April, it might be the perfect place to furnish a new life, one that might not have room for her distant husband and daughter. This grown-up fable replaces the erotics of sex with the erotics of floor plans, but April's midlife crisis and difficult adjustments ring true, as do the plot's surprising turns. (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

A lyrical first novel from Nash (Raising a Reader: A Mother's Tale of Desperation and Deceit, 2003, etc.) about a breast-cancer survivor searching for a home. As freelance writer April Newton reaches the five-year mark with a clean bill of health, she should be relieved and feeling optimistic, but something is missing. Her husband Rick, a contractor, is building her a spectacular glass-and-stone house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. He sees it as a fortress to protect her, but for April the house is haunted by coldness and despair. Shortly before moving day, April falls in love with a small Craftsman-style bungalow near the beach, the last cottage on a street now rebuilt with glass boxes and mansions. When she learns that the elderly owner will sell the house for a pittance to a family "with heart" that promises to preserve and protect it, April pulls out the stops to get the place-leaving her builder husband feeling betrayed. The author illustrates, through telling detail, the small ways that breast cancer causes a woman's world to shift, and April's writing career is deftly incorporated to reflect the challenges faced during recovery. The book's resolution is a reminder that healing doesn't always come from getting what you want. A sensitive novel that will appeal to many women and resonate with cancer survivors. Agent: Faye Bender/Faye Bender Literary Agency

Kirkus Reviews