The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III

From the Publisher

From the author of the New York Times bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection House of Sand and Fog—a new big-hearted, painful, page-turning novel.



One early September night in Florida, a stripper brings her daughter to work. April's usual babysitter is in the hospital, so she decides it's best to have her three-year-old daughter close by, watching children's videos in the office, while she works.

Except that April works at the Puma Club for Men. And tonight she has an unusual client, a foreigner both remote and too personal, and free with his money. Lots of it, all cash. His name is Bassam. Meanwhile, another man, AJ, has been thrown out of the club for holding hands with his favorite stripper, and he's drunk and angry and lonely.



From these explosive elements comes a relentless, raw, searing, passionate, page-turning narrative, a big-hearted and painful novel about sex and parenthood and honor and masculinity. Set in the seamy underside of American life at the moment before the world changed, it juxtaposes lust for domination with hunger for connection, sexual violence with family love. It seizes the reader by the throat with the same psychological tension, depth, and realism that characterized Andre Dubus's #1 bestseller, House of Sand and Fog—and an even greater sense of the dark and anguished places in the human heart.

Publishers Weekly

This fascinating novel is a powerful look at connection and love played out inside of a strip club in Florida. The central character is April, a stripper forced to bring her child to work because her babysitter has a panic attack. A male narrator seems a poor choice, as a strong female performance would have captured the essence of the story far better. Dan John Miller reads clearly and with good pacing, but his deep monotone lacks emotion. While the writing is certainly first rate and the characters completely realistic, Miller fails to capture the listener's attention. A W.W. Norton hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 17). (June)

Kirkus Reviews

An explosive narrative employs a Florida strip club as a tinderbox of tensions on the weekend before 9/11. In similar fashion to his previous bestseller (House of Sand and Fog, 1999), Dubus shows a profound empathy as he gets inside the heads of a number of characters, with coincidence, chance and a clash of cultures building to a shattering climax. Through quick-cutting chapters (few longer than ten pages, many as short as one or two), he propels the action while providing the back stories that have brought these characters together for a night that will change their lives. April is an uncommonly sober-minded stripper and single mother who saves all her earnings to secure a better future for herself and her three-year-old daughter Franny. Jean is April's landlady and Franny's babysitter, a widow who shares her house more for the company than the extra income. She is also prone to panic attacks and may be a hypochondriac, an alcoholic or both. On the night in question, Jean is hospitalized and can't watch Franny. April reluctantly takes Franny to work, leaving her in a closed office while she goes to dance for customers. One of the clients is Bassam, a Muslim who pays extravagantly. Bassam berates April as immoral even as he lusts after her, and he keeps her from checking on her daughter. (Later his subplot has the most trouble meshing with the others.) Another customer is AJ, separated from the wife he has beaten and the son he loves, and now bounced from the club for getting too physical with one of the dancers. As their fates become inexorably intertwined, Dubus does a masterful job of allowing the reader to understand, if not forgive, why each character does what he or she does. Inthe process, he explores intricacies of faith and fate, love in its many dimensions (from maternal to sexual), the transactions through which men and women exert power over each other and the culture that shapes the characters and destinies of these individuals. Difficult to put down, impossible to forget. Agent: Philip Spitzer/Philip Spitzer Literary Agency

Product Details