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5.0 out of 5 stars
Keyes' best yet!!, May 31 2004
Katherine, Fintan and Tara grew up together in the small coastal Clare town of Knockavoy, in the 1960s and 1970s; they're now all in their early thirties and living in London. Katherine's the only one not in a relationship, but she claims to be perfectly happy as she is - far happier than Tara, who's lived with Thomas for the last two years. Thomas is mean and cruel to Tara, but she won't leave him because, she insists, she's in the Last Chance Saloon. At her age, and with her overweight figure, she'll never find another man.
Katherine thinks that no man is far better than one who isn't faithful or kind or loving; we gradually find out that she's had more than enough experience of the other kind. And that's why, when the handsome, charming and genuinely *nice* Joe Roth asks her out, she's needlessly cruel to him. Last chance saloon? She couldn't care less.Until suddenly it's *Fintan* - Fintan, the golden boy, blissfully happy with his boyfriend Sandro - who's really in the Last Chance Saloon. Fintan is very seriously ill - not with AIDS, thankfully, but with Hodgkin's Disease. And it's very possible that he might die... Suddenly, life begins to look very different to both Katherine and Tara, and they start to re-evaluate their priorities and what they want out of life. There are some wonderful secondary characters in this book, too: Sandro, Fintan's boyfriend; Joe Roth; Fintan's family, the O'Gradys - especially Milo; Liv, Katherine and Tara's former flatmate; and the egotistical Lorcan, whom we all want to see come a cropper before the end of the book. In this, as in so many ways, Last Chance Saloon is reminiscent of Maeve Binchy at her best. (Oh, and to the reviewer who thought the character names were odd: these are all quite normal Irish names). Ever since Watermelon, I've been waiting for Marian Keyes to write another book genuinely worth reading. I loved Watermelon: it was funny and poignant and romantic. Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married was a mistake: it was juvenile and tedious. Rachel's Holiday was better, but it felt as if a serious subject was being trivialised - though that may have been the first-person narrative. Last Chance Saloon, however, at last shows what Keyes is really capable of. I preferred the third-person narrative in this book, and the fact that, as a result, Keyes gave us a rounded picture of both Katherine and Tara - a less rounded picture of Fintan, but then it was interesting to view him through others' eyes. In many ways, he is a pivotal character in the plot development. Next up: Sushi For Beginners, which I really hope is as good as this book! I think, in Marian Keyes, we may have found Maeve Binchy's successor for modern Ireland. wmr-uk
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by Marian Keyes
by Marian Keyes
by Marian Keyes
by Marian Keyes
by Marian Keyes
