The Last Secret

There are some books and authors that I'd like to have with me on a desert island. Mary McGarry Morris is one of those writers. I have always been drawn to her books, their dark and brooding nature with the sentience of doom and fatality omnipresent. I can almost smell the darkness when I read her novels, feel the desperation of the dissolute and the outsider. I have read all but two of her books and those two I'm saving for a very special time and place - - a desert island kind of moment. She's THAT good a writer. The Last Secret is powerful and unflinching. It builds up slowly but the tension and angst keep coming. The characters are disgruntled, desperate, despairing, fragile, with huge currents roiling through their being as they try to keep their inner and outer storms at bay. Some characters are loathsome, despicable and pathetic. These are juxtaposed with others who try to stay strong, keep one foot in front of the other, and maintain independence at all costs. What Ms. Morris is so excellent at portraying is that while people try to fool themselves into believing that they have certain attributes better, worse, or more unique than others, most people are actually quite alike in that they harbor these components: the good, the bad and the evil. When she was seventeen years old, Nora ran off with a troubled young man named Eddie Hawkins. During the week she was with him she drank a lot, got into situations that were outside her comfort range and behaved in ways that she thought were completely outside her moral compass. At one point Eddie asks her to come on to an older man and encourage him to follow her outside a bar so that Eddie can rob him. The older man follows her and something dreadful happens. Nora is never sure of the exact details but she has a recurrent nightmare that the man has his face bashed in by a tire iron and that she is the one who commits the crime. What she also remembers, is that after the 'incident' she is covered with blood and that she hitches a ride with a semi driver who manages to get her away from the scene of the crime and encourages her to call her mother. She calls her mother and returns home, bringing with her a lifetime of guilt and nightmares. Skip forward twenty-five years. Nora is now happily married (so the thinks) to a man named Ken and she has two teen-aged children, Drew and Chloe. She has married into old money and works on the family-owned newspaper in New England. From the outside, everyone is happy and the family looks perfect but, as Nora believes, "Happiness so often trails a long shadow". She soon finds out that Ken has been having a 'relationship' for the past four years with one of her best friends. Nora's world is shattered. Her family is torn apart and in the process other, and often darker, secrets come to light. "Behind every truth lurks a darker truth. Behind the simplest reality, betrayal." Nora is philanthropic and she is deeply involved with the voluntee

What a reading experience! Entertaining, mesmerizing, touching. I can't believe I read this book in one sitting. Absolutely couldn't put it down. This is the kind of book writers used to write - a strong story about believable and interesting people. Nora Hammond's humiliating and painful discovery of her very sociable husband's infidelity brings to mind the plight of another sharp woman - Elizabeth Edwards. Our book club members are going to be all over this one. Promises to be quite a discussion.

"The Last Secret" is the kind of book that stays in your thoughts long after you've finished. Nora Hammond's happy life suddenly turns upside down when her well to do husband Ken admits his long affair with Nora's best friend, Robin, who is pretty and actually very likable. Into the middle of this pain and confusion comes Eddie Hawkins, the only one who knows the shameful secret of Nora's teenage past. Eddie Hawkins is a desperate, dangerous psychopath. And he sees Nora as his last chance, just another victim to be used. The book is an amazing combination of a gripping and chilling story that is so elegantly written. Once again Mary McGarry Morris takes the reader inside the head and hearts of all these characters so that you never forget them. Especially Nora Hammond who I really liked and admired. And her two teenagers, Chloe and Drew who seemed so very real. I finished the book also caring for Robin, the adultress and best friend. And, strangest of all even caring a little for scary Eddie Hawkins.

Seventeen year old Nora Trimble spends eight dangerous days with her psychotic boyfriend Eddie Hawkins that ends in violence. Nora moves on and marries wealthy Kendall "Ken" Hammond, whose family owns the Franklin Chronicle newspaper in Franklin, Massachusetts newspaper. They have two kids and their life together is near perfect. Twenty-six years have passed since the horrifying incident and Nora has all but forgotten it. However, her idyllic world collapses when the two men in her life hammer at her psyche with revelations. Serial killing Eddie by simply returning to blackmail her and Ken by informing her he has had a four year old affair with his teen girlfriend sweetheart Robin Gendron, the wife of his best friend. Eddie finds an additional reason to hang around as he obsesses over Robin. This engaging family thriller is fast-paced once Eddie returns and never slows down as secrets almost three decades old and present are revealed. The cast is fully developed to the point that the audience understands them and to a degree sympathizes with every one of the key players, even psycho Eddie. Though the events and people may have changed, Mary McGarry Morris makes a case that history repeats itself if one fails to learn from the previous mistake. Fans will enjoy the aptly titled THE LAST SECRET as several beleaguered souls fight to regain some equilibrium while considering Paradise Lost will never become Paradise Regained. Harriet Klausner

McGarry Morris has written a number of provocative novels, this one dealing with the foolish mistakes of youth, an inappropriate love affair and a marriage laid bare by a husband's confessed infidelity. Nora Hammond, living in a small New England town with husband, Kendall, and two teenaged children, Chloe and Drew, has put the nightmarish events of her youth aside as a wife and mother. Working at the family-owned newspaper, Nora has found fulfillment, believing the past far behind her. Until her husband's rash confession, the only hint of trouble is the occasional bad dream of the fateful night Nora last saw Eddie Hawkins. Ken's baring of his soul reduces Nora's bliss to a pile of ashes, his affair undermining everything she has counted on in her relationship with Ken. Vacillating between rage and grief, Nora struggles with Ken's revelation, unable to get a grip on her emotions. What is barely tolerable becomes unendurable with the return of the boyfriend who suddenly appears at Nora's home, office and social events. She doesn't know what Eddie wants from her, only that a shameful secret must not come out. As she begins the stages of grief over Ken's betrayal of their marriage, the reader is compelled to follow in the wake of this Nora's pain, her anguish at Ken's infidelity vying with her desire to confront the woman who has taken her place in his affections. Oblivious to everyone in her pain, Nora is further shocked to realize the long-term affair has long been the topic of interest for friends, coworkers and acquaintances. Even her son has carried the weight of Ken's infidelity long before Nora learns the truth. Perhaps Nora's reaction is appropriate, reasonable even; it is her inability to resist the lure of the wronged victim that becomes tedious, an endless rehashing of memories, the small signs she should have noticed, the shame of everyone knowing about the affair. Nora's family is deeply dysfunctional, Ken unworthy of the anguish Nora suffers, their family façade exposed by a husband's infidelity and lame excuse for his actions, "It just happened". It is Nora's willful blindness that becomes irritating, as well as the jarring reappearance of Eddie Hawkins. Then there is Nora's confusing response to Eddie's veiled threats. Unfortunately, the introduction of this bizarre character from the past allows the author to avoid the difficult resolution of a family in crisis, allowing a more spectacular ending than the usual denouement of such a marriage. Most curious is the emotional evolution of the protagonist, Nora as firmly entrenched in the role of victim as when the novel begins: "I've lived my whole life trying to keep one step ahead of what I am." Luan Gaines/2009.