Synopses & Reviews
A Publishers Weekly Best BookJack Lambeau is the prodigal son returned home to Lakeland, New York; the Ivy-League educated architectural visionary brought home to reinvent the dying port town and smooth over its self imposed scars. His friend, Steven Turner is the Brooklyn-born local reporter who will bear witness to the city's successes and failures. Between them come Jack's beautiful fiancee Anne--an artist with secrets of her own - and his undisciplined brother Harris, hired by Jack to remove the suspicious barrels of waste from Lakeland's broken heart.
As the town struggles to find a new identity, these four characters must find their way through their own unexpected transformations and along the way attempt to answer the questions that plague us all: what is the price of loyalty, filialty, goodness and love?
Review
“In
The Last Good Chance Tom Barbash brings fresh seriousness and sympathy and wit to bear on the ancient problem of loyalty. This is an ambitious, deftly plotted, multifariously satisfying piece of genuine American realism.”—Jonathan Franzen, author of
The Corrections“Here is a wonderful book. Humorous, poignant, filled with people we either know or have been—we watch, spellbound, as characters and a town struggle to invent and re-invent themselves, and to ultimately save themselves as well.” —Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle
“Barbash has imbued his first novel with a strong and evocative sense of place...reminds me of Russell Bankss writing. The Last Good Chance is heady, lyrical—and darkly funny...its a pleasure to read.” —Meg Wolitzer, author of Surrender Dorothy
Review
"Confident and highly enjoyable...a smart, brisk first novel difficult to put down." --
San Francisco Chronicle"Barbash brings fresh seriousness and sympathy and wit to bear on the ancient problem of loyalty. This is an ambitious, deftly plotted, multifariously satisfying piece of genuine American realism." --Jonathan Franzen
"Intricately plotted...ambition marks Barbashs satisfying first novel. . . it rewards the reader with wisdom and winning characters." --The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A captivating debut." --Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"The Last Good Chance is an ambitious piece of work, a brash, big-strokes book....There are layers upon layers of rich material here." --The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
Lakeland, New York, was once a world of bustling mills, proud residents, and miles of ruggedly beautiful coastline. Now it's another small northeastern town whose pulse stopped beating years ago. Close friends Jack Lambeau and Steven Turner find themselves entwined in the town's latest and most promising efforts at revival. Jack is the prodigal son returned; the Ivy League-educated urban-design expert brought back to reinvent Lakeland as a tasteful mecca for tourists and yuppies. Turner is the exiled local reporter who will bear witness to the towns successes and failures. Between them come Jacks fiancée Anne--an artist with secrets of her own--and his undisciplined brother Harris, hired to bury the missteps of the past that might derail his brother's plans.
About the Author
Thomas Barbash's fiction has appeared in
Tin House,
Story,
Virginia Quarterly Review and elsewhere. A Michener Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he has also served as a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and is the recipient of a Nelson Algren Award. He is also the co-author, with Howard Lutnik, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, of
Top of the World (HarperCollins, September 2002). Born and raised in New York, he currently lives in San Francisco.