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Type of bind: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: January 22, 2002
Publishing house: Back Bay Books
Sale Popularity Level: 192553
Studio: Back Bay Books
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Product Description:
The Last Time They Met opens with two old lovers, both poets, running into each other at a writer's conference. Well, Linda Fallon and Thomas Janes aren't old, actually--just middle-aged, with a lifetime's worth of history between them. In the very first section, Anita Shreve only suggests what that history contains: there was adultery, we gather, and a car accident, plus some illicit encounters under a pitiless Kenyan sun. Presumably the rest of the book will lead back to the beginnings of this grand passion, right? We think we know where this is going--but that's the tricky part, because we don't.The novel does get off to a slow start, with an unnecessarily drawn-out description of a luxury hotel. But it picks up speed as it moves backward in time, from the lovers' vividly evoked interlude in Africa, to their adolescent years in the Massachusetts village of Hull, and finally to Linda's deepest, darkest secret. Only then does the author unveil her final revelation, which should leave most readers somewhat out of breath, and possibly even obliged to turn back to the very first page and read the book over again. Shreve is a canny storyteller, and she knows her characters inside and out. (As well she might: Thomas is the husband of Jean, the photographer in The Weight of Water.) And The Last Time They Met is yet another example of the kind of book she does best--one that's as skillfully plotted as a thriller, but with writing that lingers long after the last plot twist is unfurled. No matter whether people actually have affairs like these. Reading this book only makes you wish that they did. --Mary Park
Amazon.com Review:
The Last Time They Met opens with two old lovers, both poets, running into each other at a writer's conference. Well, Linda Fallon and Thomas Janes aren't old, actually--just middle-aged, with a lifetime's worth of history between them. In the very first section, Anita Shreve only suggests what that history contains: there was adultery, we gather, and a car accident, plus some illicit encounters under a pitiless Kenyan sun. Presumably the rest of the book will lead back to the beginnings of this grand passion, right? We think we know where this is going--but that's the tricky part, because we don't.
The novel does get off to a slow start, with an unnecessarily drawn-out description of a luxury hotel. But it picks up speed as it moves backward in time, from the lovers' vividly evoked interlude in Africa, to their adolescent years in the Massachusetts village of Hull, and finally to Linda's deepest, darkest secret. Only then does the author unveil her final revelation, which should leave most readers somewhat out of breath, and possibly even obliged to turn back to the very first page and read the book under again. Shreve is a canny storyteller, and she knows her characters inside and out. (As well she might: Thomas is the husband of Jean, the photographer in The Weight of Water.) And The Last Time They Met is yet another example of the kind of book she does best--one that's as skillfully plotted as a thriller, but with writing that lingers long after the last plot twist is unfurled. No matter whether people actually have affairs like these. Reading this book only makes you wish that they did. --Mary Park
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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As a writing major in college, I was taught that to keep vital information from your readers, particularly all the way to the end, leaves your readers with a feeling that they have been duped and deceived.
And that's exactly how I felt at the end.
Sometimes the writing is brilliant and at other times the sentences are so badly written that I had to read them several times over to try and figure out what the author was trying to say.
I liked the characters, but I wondered throughout why Linda and Thomas didn't seem to have a discernable voice of their own, and without the "He said", "She said", I would never have been able to figure out who was speaking by the words they spoke or the way they spoke. At very first I thought it was a failure of the writer to understand that each and every person talks with a cadence and sentence structure of their own. The ending may have clarified why Linda sounded an awful lot like Thomas, but I'm not sure if that was the intention of Ms.Shreve.
Also, the descriptions of places were too lengthy and slowed the plot down. Perhaps this was to throw us off the track so that we wouldn't be able to figure out the ending. Shouldn't the ending have come as something we slowly came to know in our heart of hearts? It would have made the ending moving and touching instead of simply puzzling. Why the shock value? I think it was cheap theatrics better left for a Soap Opera than a novel.
I do, however, believe that the author has a good understanding of Soul Mate love which is timeless and never dies and that is what kept me reading and salvages the whole thing from being a total letdown.
Cindi Sansone-Braff, author of "Grant Me a Higher Love: How to Go from the Relationship from Hell to One that's Heaven Sent by Scaling The Ladder of Love."
Rated by buyers 
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I was cruising along, eagerly awaiting a happy ending when the protagonists could finally be together as was meant to be.....and then SHOCK. It can't be! I felt upset confused and betrayed when I got to the last page. It was all a ruse. If she was going to do that to us then maybe she should have developed that plot twist a little more instead of just cutting everything off. For this reason I don't feel I can recommend the book and will probably not read another by this author.
Rated by buyers -
I've read several of the author's books and all are suspenseful, sometimes draggingly slow. Sometimes you can't undersand the plot due to the long sentences with strange constructions. The love story is such that you feel the ache of the characters. But why the ending? Nowhere does it explain this. It doesn't fit the story at all. And you wait until the last paragraph to get it. Is a sad book and you never really feel happiness. Drags you down.
Rated by buyers 
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There was a build up to the suicide in the last paragraph? Where? Was it buried somewhere in the verbose chapters telling of Linda's attitude towards hotels? Was it typed somewhere in those irritating italics?
When I finish a book I usually donate it to a thrift shop. I simply can't donate this book. I would hate to think that someone else wasted a few hours of their life by reading it. I tossed it in the recycling bin instead.
Horrible book. Don't waste your time.
Rated by buyers 
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Another Anita Shreve's hit, sober, heart-wrenching and full of texture. I had no idea it had a connection to one of her previous books, "The Weight Of Water", which I read years ago (and liked very much). It connects us with one smaller character in that book, Linda, but it is not necessary to read its predecessor to get into this one, as it is not a sequel.
Linda and Thomas meet and fall in love as teenagers, but the story unfolds backwards, after a chance meeting in Toronto, when they are both in their fifties. They have not seen each other in twenty-six years. Their past life with all its joys, flaws and pains resurfaces. The anatomy of a very deep, moving true love is described with such emotional substance, its essence never lost to the reader.
And the end. The surprising ending. I found this novel to be a page-turner and possibly the best one I've read by this author (I've read almost everything written by Ms. Shreve). A love story to be remembered.
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