The Last Summer

I found this book at a Bargain Price for $5 and said Why Not. Sounded interesting and the price was right. Boy was I surprised! The writing was nothing short of excellent. I like how John Hough was able to completely focus on each scene at a time, instead of jumping around like many authors do. It felt so complete each time you finished a chapter, but you were dying to go on and find out what else is going to happen. The depiction of the era of the late 60s and of New England was absolutely phenomenal. I felt like I was watching a movie. Too bad there arent any previous books still in print by this great author because I would love to read more!!

At thirty-nine, Claire Maleck knows her life in DC is over as her affair with her boss, repulsive Senator Bob Mallory has ended. Knowing she needs to start over, Claire, accompanied by her teenage daughter, drives to Boston to stay with her mom until she can find employment. In Cape Cod, Claire asks the editor of the Covenant John Hillman for a job as a secretary. Instead, John hires her to write obituaries, which serves as an on the job internship in finding information and writing copy.Soon Claire finds herself attracted to her boss' son reporter Lane Hillman, who reciprocates her feelings. However, he is closer in age to her daughter than to her and in the already heated summer of 1968 that relationship is taboo. As they work together inquiring into two murders, they fall in love, but neither realize the danger their investigative journalism will place them from a killer who wants to remain unidentified.The who-done-it is fun to follow and filled with suspense, but also the mystery is quite obvious. However, the clever use of major historical items from a summer that burned makes for a tremendously entertaining tale especially for those boomers who can relate to Chicago, riots, and assassinations. Claire is a great prime player who enables the reader to feel that crazy world of fire thirty five years ago yet she also allows fans to see inside those who touch her, a rare reversal that shows how talented John Hough, Jr. is.Harriet Klausner

This is a beautifully written, engrossing book about complex people and the pain, sadness, and joy that come to them in unexpected ways. John Hough has an unusually fine ear for dialogue and brings the reader into intimate contact with the characters. At the same time while not obstrusively so, the writing has a compelling poetic quality. This is a captivating book about people with interesting sensibilities. It also has a strong narrative line and is a good read. i recommend it highly.

This is fine storytelling, rich and smoothly written withoutbeing slick. It does an excellent job capturing the flavor ofthe time and place--Cape Cod in 1968. The book works very wellon a variety of levels: the relationship between an older womanand a younger man, politics and power structures, and life at asmall-town newspaper. Claire Malek leaves Washington and, bychance, winds up as a reporter for the Covenant, a twice-a-weekpaper in a town on the Cape. She has a lot of learning, and a lot of unlearning to do about the job. A twice-weekly small-townpaper is not like the N.Y. Times or the USA Today, and the jobof a reporter is very different. You'll learn a great deal fromthis novel about the operation of such a paper, from the flatbedpress to the manual typewriters, but there's no getting boggeddown in the details. The author's father and grandfather wereeditors of the Falmouth Enterprise (on Cape Cod) and his great-uncle was Henry Beetle Hough, Pulitzer-winning long-time editorof the Vineyard Gazette, so the author can describe life onsuch a newspaper with loving care.The Covenant's editor has a son Lane who has just graduated fromcollege, and who also works on the paper, and there is anattraction between Lane and Claire, which develops into a relationship. I have read all too many books which would takethis basic theme and exploit it in an unpleasant manner, buthere things seem very natural and not labored.The writing style is a joy. As the book gently points out, as Claire learns, good reporters can tell a story succinctlyand cleanly--they don't waste space, but neither do theyabbreviate. The writing style has this flavor--there is nosense of padding, no extraneous verbiage, things are toldstraightfowardly. Too many novels--too many popular novels--are short stories padded into 300-page books. John Grisham'snovels seem to be this way, whereas Scott Turow's books are not.The Last Summer has a fine, easy, unlabored flow to it, and youdon't find paragraphs and pages that you wish had been left out.There's an epilogue, which brings Claire and Lane back togetherafter almost 30 years, and the epilogue provides an excellentcounterpoint to the overrated Bridges of Madison County. InBridges, each of the lovers has no clue about what the other isdoing over the following years--this never seemed believable--a top photographer/author who continues his work can be found,and the photographer can get the local paper, which would lethim know some of what is going on with her life. This is notalways true--it can be hard to find a transient, for example.In Last Summer, Lane and Claire both stay in the newspaperbusiness, and, realistically and believably, each has beenable to follow the career and life of the other.A fine read.

...P>Within a framework of tragedies both local and national, Hough sets the unconventional love story of Claire and Lane. <p>Hough's insights into many different worlds (small town newspapers, summer resorts, Washington, DC) and his feeling for intergenerational relationships give the book complexity. His prose is both concise and lyrical and he is not afraid to take chances with language. He hits the mark, as with Claire's last view of the Capitol building ("looming flagrant and serene") and her reaction to her mother ("It was exhausting living with Violet. Like being in a place where the wind never stopped blowing...") Hough is just as daring with structure, as the book's epilogue reveals.<p>Find time and a quiet corner for this lovely book.