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Summary
Summary
The latest novel from Pulitzer Prize-winner Anna Quindlen - In this breathtaking and beautiful novel, the #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen creates an unforgettable portrait of a mother, a father, a family, and the explosive, violent consequences of what seem like inconsequential actions. Mary Beth Latham has built her life around her family, around caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman's love and determination, and to the invisible lines of hope and healing that connect one human being with another. Ultimately, as rendered in Anna Quindlen's mesmerizing prose, Every Last One is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel, and about living a life we never dreamed we'd have to live, but find ourselves brave enough to try.
Author Notes
Author Anna Quindlen was born in Philadelphia on July 8, 1953. She graduated from Barnard in 1974 and serves on their Board of Trustees.
Quindlen worked as a reporter for the New York Post and the New York Times and wrote columns for the Times. She won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary before devoting herself to writing fiction.
She has written both adult fiction (including Object Lessons, Black and Blue and One True Thing, which was made into a motion picture starring Meryl Streep) and children's fiction (Happily Ever After and The Tree That Came to Stay). Her title Alternate Side made the bestseller list in 2018.
Currently, she is a columnist at Newsweek. Her title Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake made The New York Times Best Seller list for 2012. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
New York Review of Books Review
IF it's true that traits like noveltyseeking and risk-aversion are genetic in origin, then Mary Beth Latham's biological makeup appears to be tilted toward safety and security. Mary Beth, the narrator of Anna Quindlen's engrossing new novel, "Every Last One," values stability and sameness, finding quiet contentment in her long, amiable marriage to an ophthalmologist and in her flourishing career as a landscaper. But her most intense feelings and greatest concerns are centered on her three teenage children: lovely Ruby, nearing her last year of high school, and the twins, Max and Alex, who will be freshmen next year. The Lathams' busy, welcoming household, a study in domestic tranquility, is a magnet for friends of all ages. But there are curious ripples beneath this happy surface. Does the fact that Ruby has teetered on the edge of anorexia have mostly to do with normal growing pains or is there something darker, more troublesome to blame? And what about Ruby's increasing wish to free herself from a cloying romance with her childhood playmate and high school sweetheart, who seems to be a constant presence in the Latham household? As for the twins, they're a study in yin and yang. Alex is outgoing, comfortable in his own skin, on his way to making the high school soccer team; Max (called Max the Mute by his classmates) is clumsy and rarely speaks. IT seems unlikely that violence could erupt in the peaceful, countrified New England town where the Lathams live. Yet early in the novel one of Mary Beth's large landscaping jobs ("six tiers of shrubs, a small copse of flowering plum and pear, a long hedge of weigela") is vandalized, the plantings uprooted and carried off overnight. "I don't mean to sound hysterical, but I am really freaked out by this," she tells the policeman who arrives to inspect the damage. Mary Beth and her women friends talk about everything, husbands excepted. You wonder why - until all three of the Latham children go off for the summer and their parents are left alone. Instead of enjoying a second honeymoon, Mary Beth and her husband stolidly continue with their daily routines, saying little to each other. But on her way home from work, Mary Beth sometimes finds herself crying, "for reasons that are overwhelming and mysterious." What if she were to tell her husband about this, she wonders. "'Why?' he would have said, and what could I tell him? Could I sit opposite this open-faced man, with his pink cheeks and his warm brown eyes . . . and say, 'Loneliness'? Worse still, what if he said that he had done the same, felt the same? Then where would we all be?" ONE mellow September afternoon at the end of that summer, Ruby explains chaos theory to her mother: how the beating of a butterfly's wings in Mexico could raise a breeze in their own back yard. "That's kind of terrifying," Mary Beth replies. Is she thinking of the out-of-character risk she once took, a brief affair long ago with the husband of a woman who had been a close friend, and the chain of events - the shaky couple's subsequent divorce - the affair may have set in motion? It would be unfair to reveal what happens to the Lathams, other than to say that tragedy of an outrageous, almost unbelievable, dimension strikes at the heart of the family. The events leading to this catastrophe, and then its painful aftermath, make for a spellbinding tale. There are curious ripples below the tranquil surface of this welcoming household in a countrified town. Maggie Scarf is the author of "September Songs" and "Intimate Partners." She is writing a book about remarriage.
Library Journal Review
Quindlen's sixth novel, following Rise and Shine (2006); simultaneous release with the Random hc (400,000-copy first printing); Hope Davis reads. Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.