*A July 2019 Indie Next List Great Read* *One of Parade's Most Anticipated Books of Summer 2019* *An O Magazine Best Beach Read of 2019* *A New York Post Best Beach Read of 2019* —The New York Times Book Review, Beach Reads Roundup —O Magazine “I tore through this novel in a single night. Intensely charming, intelligent, sexy, and specific, The Last Book Party immerses us in the incestuous world of the 1980s literary elite....This is the summer’s most delicious and intelligent beach read.”Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth (finalist for National Book Award) The Last Book Party .”Cathleen Schine, New York Times bestselling author of The Three Weissmanns of Westport and The Grammarians Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light —The New York Post —AM New York —Electric Literature The Last Book Party is a] charming debut novel with a Gatsbyesque feel. . . .With her pitch-perfect style, Dukess evokes the bygone gentility of the publishing world. . . .More than an entertaining novel of the era, The Last Book Party captures the dawning self-knowledge of an aspiring young writer who is held back by a mix of her insecurities, naivete, and expectations of the day who realizes that she has been intoxicated by illusions of brilliance but one day may be able to fulfill her own ambitions."—National Book Review —Library Journal , starred review The Last Book Party is a delight. A story of a young woman trying to find herself while surrounded by the bohemian literary scene during a summer on the Cape in the late 80s, I found myself nodding along in so many moments and dreading the last page. Karen Dukess has rendered a wonderful world to spend time in.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six The Last Book Party captures a world tantalizingly close to the surface of memory, in which things now lost to time mattered a great deal, and the Internet era was slouching toward us to be born. This Orphic book goes down to retrieve a beloved New York, and the pleasant ache at its heart is that it can’t bring it back forever. Charming, lovely, and written with a light touch, this book captures the longing and unease of summer romance amid the complexity of post-graduate life. Shades of Goodbye, Columbus , The Mysteries of Pittsburgh , and Bright Lights, Big City haunt its pages."—Matthew Thomas, New York Times -bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves The Last Book Party details a 1980s summer among the literary set that has far-flung consequences for all its characters. As much as the book focuses on love affairs between people, readers will leave inspired by the real love affair here: between Karen Dukess and the world of reading and writing that she illuminates." —Stephanie Clifford, New York Times bestselling author of Everybody Rise The Last Book Party left me aching for the hard lessons of youth, trembling with hope—and utterly transfixed until the final page."—Ann Mah, bestselling author of The Lost Vintage “This bittersweet summer romance had me turning pages right up to the end. If you love books about books—and if you’ve ever dressed up as your favorite literary character—this is a party you won’t want to miss.”—Jason Rekulak, author of The Impossible Fortress The Last Book Party made me incredibly nostalgic for an iconic literary world of New York that is no more, one that smells of cigarettes, whiskey on the rocks, promiscuity, and miraculous bursts of luck. Karen Dukess' coming of age tale is a magnifying lens from the past that shows us a glimpse of who we are (and can be) today. A story from 1987 that is surprisingly in dialogue with a contemporary conversation about what it means to be a woman, a writer, and an artist struggling to find a place, The Last Book Party is a novel about a young woman in search for a voice written by a writer who has clearly found hers."—Chiara Barzini author of Things That Happened Before The Earthquake —Lucinda Rosenfeld, author of Class The Last Book Party tells the ultimately uplifting universal tale of the breakthrough that comes of a young woman’s shattered illusions.”—Suzy Becker, bestselling author-illustrator of All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat and I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse? "Readers aching for the sun-dappled intrigue of André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name or the wit of Francine Prose's Blue Angel will find a kindred reading experience here...Mixing ambivalence, nostalgia and the power of innocence in an idyllic setting, this journey of self-discovery is an ideal summer read for those who might shun more typical 'beach-read' offerings."—Booklist —Kirkus —Parade
05/27/2019
Dukess’s vivid debut travels back to the summer of 1987 when an aspiring writer lands a job as an assistant for a well-known writer. Eve Rosen is a secretary at Hodder, Strike and Perch, a publishing company. While staying in Truro, Mass., with her family during the summer, Eve is invited to a party at the home of writer Henry Grey, where she meets his carefree son, Franny, and the two engage in a brief affair. After realizing that her secretarial position is a career dead end, Eve takes Henry up on his offer of a research assistant position for the summer. Though she enjoys working for Henry, and he begins to value her opinion, their friendship changes into an affair they both understand will likely end once the summer is over. Henry and his wife, Tillie, meanwhile, continue to plan the their end-of-summer party where everyone dresses up as their favorite literary character. Eve’s novelist friend Jeremy Grand comes for the party, but not all goes as planned, as Eve discovers some disturbing things about the origins of the plot of Jeremy’s novel. Clever characterizations bolster this enticing coming-of-age story. (July)
Jesse Vilinsky’s dramatic narration reveals a young woman’s transformation during a summer spent with a group of writers on Cape Cod. Vilinsky’s high tones and pacing bring out aspiring writer Eve Rosen’s naïveté and her fascination with illustrious writer Henry Grey and his peers. Although some of the characters aren’t fully distinguishable in the beginning, Vilinsky quickly finds their voices and maintains them consistently. The exaggerated, overenunciated delivery Vilinsky uses to portray the haughty high-society writers contrasts with the casual, friendly manner of Henry and his son, Franny. Vilinsky’s more grounded tone reflects how 25-year-old Eve’s attitudes and behavior change after summer heartbreak and relationship revelations. A proficient performance of this atmospheric story. M.F. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
Jesse Vilinsky’s dramatic narration reveals a young woman’s transformation during a summer spent with a group of writers on Cape Cod. Vilinsky’s high tones and pacing bring out aspiring writer Eve Rosen’s naïveté and her fascination with illustrious writer Henry Grey and his peers. Although some of the characters aren’t fully distinguishable in the beginning, Vilinsky quickly finds their voices and maintains them consistently. The exaggerated, overenunciated delivery Vilinsky uses to portray the haughty high-society writers contrasts with the casual, friendly manner of Henry and his son, Franny. Vilinsky’s more grounded tone reflects how 25-year-old Eve’s attitudes and behavior change after summer heartbreak and relationship revelations. A proficient performance of this atmospheric story. M.F. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
SEPTEMBER 2019 - AudioFile
2019-04-14
It's June 1987, and Eve Rosen is star-struck as she walks up the driveway of the summer home of New Yorker writer Henry Grey, for the guests are "Truro's summer elite, the writers, editors, poets, and artists who left their apartments in Manhattan and Boston around Memorial Day and stayed on Cape Cod into September." An editorial secretary at Henry's New York publisher, Eve is thrilled to meet the man whose correspondence with her, however brief, is the highlight of her job. She is also dazzled by Henry's attractive son, Franny, and Henry's aloof wife, the poet Tillie Sanderson. With dreams of becoming a writer, yet lacking confidence, Eve longs to join this world, so very different from her Jewish parents' suburban, middle-class lifestyle. "I was buoyed by a sense of possibility. A tentative belief that I could have a creative life too." Returning to Manhattan, Eve meets her boss's new literary discovery, snobbish Jeremy Grand, who went to school with Franny. Jealous of Jeremy's connections with the Greys and his early success, Eve reads his unpublished novel and is stunned by the power of his voice. Her doubts about her own abilities grow, but when Eve is bypassed for a promotion, she quits her job and accepts Henry's offer to work as his research assistant for the summer. Her decision leads her to some hard (if somewhat predictable) truths that are exposed at the Greys' annual book costume party. Eve is an appealing protagonist, naïve and yet assertive in trying to find her own voice as an artist.
Written with fresh confidence and verve, this first novel is a bibliophile's delight, with plenty of title-dropping and humorous digs at the publishing scene of the 1980s. The lyrical evocations of the Cape Cod landscape will also enchant readers seeking that perfect summer read.
