The Last Resort by Alison Lurie

The Last Resort Reviews

• 
  Berengaria

  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

  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.
• 
  Cindi

  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)
• 
  Pascale

  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

  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

  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

  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

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

  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

  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

  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

  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

  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.
• 
  Umi

  light but nice
• 
  Anne Van

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

  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
  
• 
  Stven

  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.
• 
  Poornima Vijayan

  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.
• 
  Robyn Bauer

  I'd heard of Alison Lurie and her 1985 Pulizer Prize and as I had this novel collecting dust I felt compelled in isolation to finally read it. Not a great novel but I actually couldn't put it down. I wanted to find out how Lurie was going to resolve the situation she had set up with these intensely unlikable characters. I read somewhere that Wilkie Walker was one of her most memorable characters and this set up an expectation that he would be worthwhile and interesting. I disliked him from the start which made me want to know what would happen to him. I felt was reading for different reasons than usual and was drawn in despite myself. Not a total waste of time.
• 
  Fabienne Lafon

  L'écriture d'Alison Lurie est toujours agréable, mais j'ai trouvé le thème de ce roman trop semblable au précédent que j'ai pu lire (la Vérité et ses conséquences), à savoir une femme dévouée à son universitaire/écrivain de mari, et qui s'échappe de cette relation étouffante grâce à une aventure extra-conjugale.
  Je pense que c'est une question de générations (Alison Lurie est née en 1926) mais on peine parfois à prendre part aux atermoiements des ces épouses qui servent de secrétaires et d'intendantes à leurs maris tout en se plaignant de leur manque de reconnaissance.
• 
  Buck Banks

  Nothing Happened in Key West
  
  This is a perfect beach book — shallow, well-written but ultimately empty. It’s pretty predictable and rather conventional. Obviously, the author spent enough time in Key West to grok the destination and the tensions between over-tourism and the necessity for tourist dollars to support the local economy, which adds a dimension of verisimilitude to the story.
  
  If you want a piece of pretty well-written beach literature, this book will satisfy. But if you’re looking for more, look elsewhere.
• 
  Marsh Bloom

  I found this on a free shelf. It was a fast read. It’s dated, but in the way that makes it an encapsulation of an era rather than dragging the book down. It’s very nicely set mostly in Key West, so if you are a fan of Key West books, probably worth the read. Otherwise, probably not. The characters are stereotypes. The trick Lurie uses of letting us see the characters biases does help bring the stereotypes to life, and the book is funny in spots, party using the stereotypes as a crutch. But... meh on the characterizations, really. The ending is satisfying enough.
• 
  Hjwoodward

  This book is about ageing and suicide ideation: I liked the way the ancient protagonist (Wilkie Walker) kept getting thwarted in his attempts to drown himself. Jenny (his wife) was well-drawn: slight quibble in that how could she possibly have entertained the thought that her husband would kiss an airhead like Barbie? Otherwise, very readable, and very pertinent concerns: ageing, death, love at different stages of life. Sad that iomportant environmental concerns have still not been addressed by our governments.
• 
  Alice Harnell

  I have always enjoyed Alison Lurie's books--some more than others and this one falls in the middle.
  Without doing a spoiler alert I do want to say the reader, fairly early in the novel, anticipates what should be a startling discovery. It is worth reading, however, and more well written than the last Lurie book I read, "The Nowhere City" which was an obvious put-down of Hollywood.