The Last of the Savages

This is my 4th McInerney novel (BLBC, Model Behavior, Brightness Falls) and while it may not be my favorite, it may be the one that most sticks in my head. Its a departure from the previous works of his i have read in that it doesnt deal primarily with New York City. I really enjoyed his examination of east coast culture versus Southern. The novel spans four different decades and I believe does a masterful job of immersing the reader in each one. The character of Will Savage is one you cant forget and the the friendship of Will and Patrick through their triumphs and turbulations is mesmerizing. As usual, McInerney is both profound and hilarious. I highly recommend this book

This book is highly underrated - I couldn't put it down, as the characters were so interesting and different.

It is followed closely by Brightness Falls but the characters and situations in Last of the Savages are incredible. He reminds me of nothing so much as Mario Puzo (in Fool's Die style) and John Knowles (superficially akin to Separate Peace. The story line is riveting, the characters are people that you would have liked to have known. Honestly, between this and Brightness Falls, I believed McInherney was turning into one of the best novelist in the last ten years. Unfortunately, his work seems to have slowed considerably and I've order The Good Life, but wish I could count on more writing of this caliber.

Jay McInerney has written another captivating novel; this time it is about two boys who meet in the all boy world of New England prep schools in 1965. Will, the wealthy Southern boy and Patrick, the son of a working class family in Massachusetts become roommates and best friends for life, despite their enormous differences. As Will rebelled against his Southern heritage and dominating father, Patrick worked dilgently to elevate himself socially by going to Yale and Harvard Law. Although they took widely divergent pathes; Will became a producer of blues music and heavy user of drugs while Patrick gained the social prestige he so longed for through his ivy league education, their boyhood bond of "best friends" remained a ballast for each of them. McInerney has given us another great story with characters so real that by the end of the book I felt as if I had known both Will and Patrick. Will was the type of boy I would have brought home and Patrick was the kind of boy my father would have chosen for me.

I really liked this book. The two characters remained interesting throughout and the story ended believabley. I've read two other books by the author which I enjoyed but this one is my favorite. The writing seems more mature. Yes, it's a little pedantic and I did have to go to the dictionary one in a while, but it didn't mar my enjoyment of the story. The first sentence really grabs you and I was pleased that the rest of the book wasn't a letdown after that. Will and Patrick were dynamic characters and I appreciated the bond which formed between the two of them as one conforms to rebel and the other rebels to conform. On the surface the book is really about "white boy" problems that anyone who makes less than $100,000.00 a year couldn't really care about. But then, this is what Mr. McInerney writes about so the reader should be pre-warned before shelling out his hard earned bucks for one of his books. Once you get past this obstacle, there really is some wonderful writing and character development. I thought the end was especially good when Patrick and Will have their last conversation. I felt they both assumed as youths, that happiness in life required some type of affirmation which ultimately, they both found incorrect. It is the choices we consciously make that determine who we are and we determine the degree of our life's successes. Will and Patrick end up as who they are because of their choices, the only "divine intervention" in the story is the families into which they were born. The only part of the book I found a little ridiculous was Will's post-prep school years when he's off discovering the world. In the last fifty years Somerset Maughm did that "Razor's Edge" thing better than anyone, that man's search for truth, yada, yada, yada. It's old and tired and these worldwide treks should really be edited into a sentence or two. Overall, I'd recommend this book.