The Garden of Last Days

A Novel

By: Andre Dubus III

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

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, A. J., 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 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 listener by the throat with the same psychological tension, depth, and realism that characterized Andre Dubus' number-one best seller - House of Sand and Fog - and has an even greater sense of the dark and anguished places in the human heart.

©2008 Andre Dubus III (P)2008 Brilliance Audio

Andre Dubus III Does It Again

This book, like his "House of Sand and Fog" is so well written. It is such a thoroughly engaging novel that it pulls you right in from the beginning. The narrator is quite skilled. The characters become your aquaintances; you find yourself questioning their thinking, judgement and actions while savoring their depth.
Because I couldn't put this book down, I planted my whole garden this year while listening all the way to the end. Enjoy!

Meandering

At first I thought this was an earlier work by this writer, as the narrative meanders and strays from what in my opinion are central story lines. The typical night at a strip club is just not that interesting and the reader has to listen to about four and a half hours of it before the story really gets going.

Listening was frustrating. I found myself getting involved in a narrative path only to have the story veer in a less appealing direction. This book is nothing like "The House of Sand and Fog" which was disciplined and directed.

The characters are flawed and suffering but there is no one to root for, and their worlds are dark and depressing.

As I prefer listening to readers without accents, drama or expression I did like the narrator, who motored along in a stream-of-consciousness monotone.

shallow character sketches and whiny women

I wouldn't recommend this title for several reasons, not the least of which there are no sympathetic characters (I disliked all of them) and the narrator makes all the female characters sound whiny and weak, which is bloody annoying. Also, a large part of the book came off as misogynistic (using the C and W words in steady stream). And the use of the hijacking of the planes in the attack on the twin towers just to add some kind of a climax at the end seemed cheap and out of place. Even though this is a dark, somewhat depressing book, I was happy that the author stayed away from getting truly depraved with one of the story lines, and thus I gave it an extra star just for that.

Sad story mostly, about sad people

This was a sad story about some sad and stupid people making some really poor choices.

A waste of time.

I should have paid attention to the previous reviews. This book is boring. The diatribes of the terrorists were of absolutely no interest. The stripper but good girl is so clich?. The only character that held my attention in the slightest was A.J. This book just dose not compare with the House Between Sand and Fog. Not even close!

depressing

just could not get in to it. bringing a 3 year old to a stipper club, keeping the child locked in a car; creeped me out,

Don't waste your time on this book

it is boring and has no exciting plot!!!!

I want those hours of my life back!

This book moved waaaaay too slow, nothing happened and I kept waiting for a plot to start. Don't bother.

Disappointing

I also loved House of Sand and Fog, but read that book instead of listening to the audio version so I don't know if that made a difference. I found the story somewhat interesting and once I got into it, I wanted to see it through. I do agree with many of the other reviewers...I did not like any of the characters and although I found the story somewhat interesting, I didn't really find myself very interested in what happened to any of them. I thought the narrator was okay, but I really disliked the way he narrated for the women. He made them all sound exactly alike, whiny, and the although the dialogue may have been written well, the way he emphasized certain words and tried to convey emotion made most of the female dialogue sound fake, contrived and not believable.

Stultifying

Beyond boring, characters that are the ultimate losers and who do nothing to change your view of them, an author (if I may use that term loosely) in love with his own prose. Run for your life and do NOT bother with this.

The reader isn't too bad except he doesn't know how to pronounce "Moet" instead saying mo-ette. About the 20th time he mispronounced it I wanted to slam my iPod through the floor.

I wish I had known how dreadful this was, I would have saved my money. It's been sitting in my iPod for 2 years. I should have let it sit, unlistened to, and turned on some music instead.