JULY 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Rob Shapiro’s calm, confident tone and perfect pacing set up empathetic characters who are thrown into a life-threatening situation in this new adventure by the acclaimed PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of THE GREAT MAN. Shapiro delivers this high-seas adventure with both deadpan humor and heartwarming emotion. In particular, he captures main character Christine Thorne’s independent spirit and razor-sharp mind. The conflicts play out in an opulent setting, the 1950s-vintage ocean liner QUEEN ISABELLA, and lead to a heartbreaking climax. The ship’s last cruise, from California to Hawaii, is a not-to-miss listen. R.O. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
05/28/2018
This sly novel from Christensen (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award for The Great Man) begins as a casual romp and then heads inexorably into darker territory. Embarking from California on the final voyage of an ocean liner that first hit the seas in the 1950s are former journalist and current Maine farmer Christine, aging Israeli violinist Miriam, and troubled Hungarian cook Mick. As Christine lounges in the sun and observes the other passengers, Miriam prepares to play a complicated piece with the other members of her string quartet and Mick copes with growing conflicts among the members of the kitchen staff. When a strike by the staff coincides with increasingly serious problems with the mechanics of the ship, the cruise quickly loses its luster. The three central characters and half a dozen others are clearly developed as Christensen integrates their personal stories into the microcosm of the onboard society. While the author’s attempts to keep the boat isolated from contact with the outside world sometimes strain credulity, and her careful parcelling out of romantic difficulties seems less than organic, the book steadily gains power as the boat loses its, and the portrayal of a small society on the edge of chaos is haunting. Christensen has crafted a Ship of Fools for an era of environmental concerns and social unrest. (July)
From the Publisher
"Entertaining and elegantly written... Kate Christensen demonstrates there's life to be found in what may appear to be the creakiest of fictional premises... [She] is a sharp observer, not only of the layered social world of the Queen Isabella but of the shifting relationships between her characters...I kept thinking of Barbara Pym, another novelist who wrote astute novels about contained worlds. Like Pym — who has been described as the most under-rated writer of the 20th century — Christensen is easy to misjudge, but, as she demonstrates in The Last Cruise she's quite capable of navigating deep waters." —Maureen Corrigan, NPR
“A smart, fast-paced adventure story, two poignant love stories, and a shrewd and chilling warning to us all. What is not to love about The Last Cruise?”
—Lily King, author of Euphoria
"Christensen is a master at drawing us into the interior lives of her characters, toeing the line between satire and sympathy... comedy and humiliation... Having gathered these disparate people together, Christensen gently rolls and pitches the stage, dislodging stones of sadness that had been safely stuck in the crevices of their everyday lives. That discombobulation is the key to the story's appeal, its unstable mix of romantic comedy, class oppression and spiritual angst — as though Cynthia Ozick wrote an episode of "The Love Boat." Christensen also deconstructs the aura of the cruise ship... Mysterious and existential... She’s interested in the most intimate and profound changes we’re willing to make only when tossed by the tempest of life."
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Excellent... Above deck are wealthy vacationers dining on caviar and Lobster Thermidor. But below, conditions are hardly different from a Third World factory. Christensen gamely traverses both worlds in this waterborne upstairs-downstairs drama."
—Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“In The Last Cruise Kate Christensen has given us a smart literary thriller whose ambitions extend well beyond its genre. It’s terrifying in ways you don’t expect.”
—Richard Russo, author of Nobody’s Fool and Empire Falls
"Excellent...The Last Cruise plays out a lot like a '50s disaster movie, and that's a good thing. It's a tremendously entertaining novel that never asks readers to turn their brains off — there's plenty of slow-burn suspense, but it doesn't come at the expense of unrealistic characters, which is a trade-off many authors are too willing to take... [Christensen] inhabits all of her characters beautifully... The Last Cruise is a captivating voyage." —Michael Schaub, NPR
"Perceptive, sophisticated, propulsive. The Last Cruise is surely not the last word on this kind of novel, but it’s a bracing example of popular storytelling with a literary twist... Christensen steers the story, streamlined yet substantial, through turbulent waters, but never loses track of its current of humanity."
—Michael Berry, Portland Press Herald
"Brilliant... The Last Cruise moves swiftly, with welcome bits of dark humor (after disaster strikes, someone's first question is whether there'll be a midnight buffet that evening) and vivid character detail... Is it a literary thriller, or a novel that just happens to contain some thriller elements? Either way, it reads just fine."
—The Seattle Times
"[A]n exciting story of human nature, love at all ages and in the face of insurmountable difficulties.” —USA Today
“This sly novel from Christensen (winner of the Pen/Faulkner Award for The Great Man) begins as a casual romp and then heads inexorably into darker territory. The book steadily gains power as the boat loses its, and the portrayal of a small society on the edge of chaos is haunting. Christensen has crafted a Ship of Fools for an era of environmental concerns and social unrest.”
—Publishers Weekly
"'The Love Boat' meets 'Lord of the Flies'... Here you are on a two-week cruise from California to Hawaii on the elegant, 1950s-era Queen Isabella... Readers of novels know very well that such extravagant expectations are likely to be exploded, and The Last Cruise deftly obliges. Christensen, author of such fine novels as “The Great Man” and “The Epicure’s Lament,” escorts us on this cruise via three very different protagonists. This is the final cruise for the aging Isabella [a]nd for each of the three main characters, the trip signals both endings and possibilities... Christensen maneuvers adroitly among these various conundrums while highlighting her characters’ strengths and flaws." —Newsday
"[A] wry and ebullient, gradually catastrophic ship-of-fools-tail... Christensen's gripping and insightful novel dramatizes with stealth and daring the dangerous contrariness of human nature."
—Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
"Kate Christensen has written a tale that is not just a gleefully nightmarish cruise, but a keenly observed microcosm of our disintegrating society and planet. You the reader are SO glad not to be on the Queen Isabella, but you find yourself there — and you hang on with grim delight. Wincingly real and blackly funny all at once."
—Peter Nichols, author of The Rocks and A Voyage for Madmen
"In her tale of a harrowing voyage at sea, [Kate Christensen] weaves together a perfect microcosm of the world today — overwhelming greed paired with selflessness and community; tribalism at its worst, and humanity at its best. At times hysterical, at times heartbreaking... This is a book that lingers with long after you've finished reading." —Portland Press Herald
"As tribulation after tribulation hits the ship, the past and present lives of the three main characters are opened up to the reader... These three lives, suspended in the limbo of a sea voyage, broaden and deepen as conditions aboard the ship worsen and bring this splendid novel to a dramatic and enigmatic close, one I encourage you to encounter for yourself."
—Barnes & Noble Review
“Christensen weaves a diverse cast of characters, each from a detailed and highly sensual world, into a grip-your-seat plot in this important, enlightening, utterly contemporary book about a world that hangs on the edge of something bigger than all of us. A must-read for our times."
—Cathi Hanauer, author of Gone and The Bitch is Back
“From the first page of The Last Cruise, it’s clear that you’re in the hands of a masterful storyteller. With wit and precision, Kate Christensen wrangles a large cast of characters on a cruise in Hawaii that undergoes a disastrous series of calamites, deftly turning what appears to be a comedy of manners into an intimate and moving story about how human beings relate to each other in times of stress and upheaval — with plenty of sensuous details about food, sex, and drink along the way. This novel is a delight.”
—#1 NYT-bestselling author Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
"A quietly stunning book about power: the abusive power of ego; the generationally-channelled power of anger; the mighty and physical power of the ocean; the reinforcing, embracing power of lifelong relationships; the survivalist power of deeply-embedded training; and the redeeming, soul-quenching power of music and words and love. Excellent." —Seattle Review of Books
"Stunning... Christensen delivers another engrossing tale rich in character and social mores that reveals the fragile veneer of civilization." —Shelf Awareness
JULY 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Rob Shapiro’s calm, confident tone and perfect pacing set up empathetic characters who are thrown into a life-threatening situation in this new adventure by the acclaimed PEN/Faulkner Award-winning author of THE GREAT MAN. Shapiro delivers this high-seas adventure with both deadpan humor and heartwarming emotion. In particular, he captures main character Christine Thorne’s independent spirit and razor-sharp mind. The conflicts play out in an opulent setting, the 1950s-vintage ocean liner QUEEN ISABELLA, and lead to a heartbreaking climax. The ship’s last cruise, from California to Hawaii, is a not-to-miss listen. R.O. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-05-28
Christensen (How to Cook a Moose, 2015, etc.) chronicles the intersecting human tragicomedies above- and belowdeck during a luxury liner's farewell Hawaiian cruise.Commissioned back in 1953, the Queen Isabella has had a long sea life. But now the corporate owners have arranged her farewell adults-only cruise with a glamorous mid-20th-century retro theme. In fact, the Queen Isabella is a little too retro, with drab '70s-era staterooms and a pool considered tiny by today's standards. Christensen writes with tenderness but no sentimentality about the old ship and about aging human characters, too. Having played together for more than 40 years, the elderly members of the Sabra String Quartet—Miriam; Isaac, her co-founder and ex-husband; Jakov; and Sasha, "the one she'd always had a crush on"—know they are nearing the end of their run. Based in Israel, the quartet is aboard to debut a work called "The Six Day War" composed by fellow passenger Rivka Weiss, whose wealthy husband owns a share in the ship. Crotchety and kind, sometimes both at once, Miriam is the novel's strongest character, expressing the quicksilver nature of human emotions: Even as her passion for Sasha re-erupts into a full-blown septuagenarian love affair, she finds herself distracted by her scratchy yet deep familial love for Isaac. Miriam befriends 36-year-old Christine, a hardworking Maine farmer's wife whose successful journalist friend Valerie is on a working vacation. Luxuriating in food, drink, and warm weather, Christine re-examines her life choices while Valerie, who's paying for their room, tries gathering information on the ship's uncooperative crew for her "book about workers." Belowdeck, executive sous chef Mick is caught between his sense of professional duty and a multicultural staff in revolt against horrible working conditions. Then the ship's engines fail, along with its electricity and plumbing. While Miriam dryly jokes about icebergs, what's begun as an idyll at sea, at least for the passengers, becomes a crisis. Soon divisions between decks blur and relationships reconfigure.An entertaining mashup of Ship of Fools and Titanic.
