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Published Jul 2017
208 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
A witty new novel about three self-proclaimed "old bags" who run off to a Greek island.
Since their children left home, Ruth, Dania, and Bess have grown used to living wonderfully free lives. Only now they're beset by children again - this time, their grandchildren. In order to escape, they decide to run away to Greece together for a year.
At first, settled on a glorious island, barefoot and contented, they think they've rediscovered the wheel. But then things begin to go awry. Dionysus, a local poet, takes up with Bess, at least until his wife gets wind of things. Dania, a therapist, is being stalked by one of her patients. And Ruth's ex-lover turns up out of the blue, closely followed by the man who lost Bess her fortune. It doesn't help when the children and grandchildren also start turning up whenever they feel like it. As Bess writes in one of Ruth's weekly "Granny à Go Go" columns, this is not an Enchanted April sort of year.
Lynn Freed's previous novels have received rave reviews everywhere from The New York Times Book Review ("Makes us laugh while packing, finally, a punch"), to the Los Angeles Times Book Review ("Deeply absorbing and ambitious ... Astonishingly vivid"). In The Last Laugh she returns with a beautifully written and funny novel about money, sex, friendship, and the pleasures and perils of children.
"If the various children and grandchildren who pop in and out, testing their elders' patience, sometimes blur together, the core relationships stay strong, making for a pleasant and diverting read. Ruth's columns, which occasionally reveal more than she intends about her housemates, add humor." - Publishers Weekly
"Replete with references to Greek mythology, Freed's modern retelling of a timeless tale of self-fulfillment wanders into surprising territory along the way." - Kirkus
"I devoured The Last Laugh in one delightful sitting. With fine style, a true heart, and coruscating wit, Freed simultaneously skewers and celebrates old age, friendship, family, romance, and work, and into the bargain delivers the most brilliant cliché-busting riff ever written." - Ann Patty, author of Living with a Dead Language
"Hilarious and wise, this sublime novel shows us how the familiar is transformed by explosive events, in a world where bonds are deepened and lifelong mistakes are redeemed. The Last Laugh is a delight." - Maria Flook, author of Mothers and Lovers and the New York Times bestseller Invisible Eden
This information about The Last Laugh was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lynn Freed is the author of numerous short stories, essays, and novels, including The Servants' Quarters and Home Ground. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, among many others. She is the recipient of the inaugural Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two PEN/O. Henry Awards, and has received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Guggenheim Foundation, among others.
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