One Last Thing Before I Go

By: Jonathan Tropper

Narrated by: John Shea

Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

The best-selling author of This Is Where I Leave You returns with a hilarious and heart-rending tale about one family's struggle to reconnect.

You don't have to look very hard at Drew Silver to see that mistakes have been made. His fleeting fame as the drummer for a one-hit wonder rock band is nearly a decade behind him. He lives in the Versailles, an apartment building filled almost exclusively with divorced men like him, and makes a living playing in wedding bands. His ex-wife, Denise, is about to marry a guy Silver can't quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter, Casey, has just confided in him that she's pregnant - because Silver is the one she cares least about letting down.

So when he learns that his heart requires emergency, lifesaving surgery, Silver makes the radical decision to refuse the operation, choosing instead to use what little time he has left to repair his relationship with Casey, become a better man, and live in the moment, even if that moment isn't destined to last very long. As his exasperated family looks on, Silver grapples with the ultimate question of whether or not his own life is worth saving.

With the wedding looming and both Silver and Casey in crisis, this broken family struggles to come together, only to risk damaging each other even more. One Last Thing Before I Go is Jonathan Tropper at his funny, insightful, heartbreaking best.

©2012 Jonathan Tropper (P)2012 Penguin

Critic reviews

"Tropper’s characters are likably zany and fallible, and perhaps more important, funny. One Last Thing Before I Go is a poignant story about facing death and celebrating life, even when things seem well beyond repair." (Newsweek/The Daily Beast)

"The richly talented Tropper (This Is Where I Leave You) has created an acerbic, middle-aged lost soul who will ultimately illuminate the reasons we stick around on this lopsided planet despite significant temptation to let it go. Readers will love Silver and want to throttle him in equal measure. Eminently quotable, hilariously funny, and emotionally draining, this arresting tour de force will entertain well after the book is done." (Library Journal)

"...a bristling, witty tale of woe that'll make you appreciate whatever good things, no matter how few, have come your way." (Entertainment Weekly)

sentimental but strong...

Five hours in the car and I was truly sad to hear the last of him, even replayed the ending. Death is around us and changes us but not until it feels real enough. The story is a little movie-structured, but feels honest enough. It's not action packed or even startling with big changes - it's just, well - "true" feeling. The read from John Shea feels spot on and really let's you feel for the guy despite his obvious issues. I confess, I didn't think I'd like it. Then I found myself liking it enough to want to keep following him and find out how he made out with the rest of his life. Nice.

More of a Good Thing for JT Fans

I read One Last Thing in print before listening to the audiobook, something I like to do with books I love, especially if they translate well to audio. This one does indeed translate well because it is a lot of fun -- at least it ends up being fun after a depressing start.

For me, both versions are cause for celebration. That's because I became a big Jonathan Tropper fan after reading his prior novel, This is Where I Leave You. My wife was reading it and laughing up a storm. What's so funny, I asked. I read it for myself, and in short order caught up on his entire back catalog of four previous novels, of which Book of Joe is my favorite (so I listened to it after reading it as well). I then jumped at One Last Thing when it came out about a year later, reading the book and then listening to it.

Sorry for the long preamble, but it leads to this: Most of these novels are pretty much the same. You have to really like what JT is doing -- variations on a theme from book to book -- to appreciate going from one to the next. I do, big time. If you've never read his books, there is no reason to worry -- get it and laugh, a lot. If you've only read one, try another and see which way you react to reading something so similar. Then decide whether to continue from there, because the others are going to all be in a similar vein.

Although it ends up being very much like the others, JT does start out flipping things around, trying to do something different. This is his first novel that is not in the first person, and that makes a difference. This time, it is about the father with the life threatening condition, not about the son dealing with a father who has died or is about to die. Which means it's not about coping with the death of a parent, but about deciding (literally) if life is worth living. So a definite shift in perspective, in several senses.

But what I liked best about One Last Thing is not that JT tried to change things up a wee bit, but the path his main character Silver takes in deciding whether he wants to save himself (literally, from his medical condition, and also in retaking hold of his life). The first thing you run into is the suburban hotel where divorced men like him now live, their wives having kicked them out -- wonderful stuff, great characters, and as I read somewhere else, the Greek Chorus of Silver's life.

Then his father enters the picture, convincing Silver to join him in a series of life-cycle events that he presides over as a rabbi -- a wedding, a funeral, a bar mitzvah, etc. -- where he can see how other people deal with life-altering changes, and where he has personal reactions.

But best of all, part of Silver's medical condition causes him to speak his inner thoughts out loud, often at the most inappropriate times. The way Tropper writes this is ingenious. You read Silver's internal monologue as in any novel. Then all of a sudden other characters react as if it was spoken out loud. I never got used to the device, never saw it coming, even after I realized what was happening and how he was doing it. And that works really well in audio.

There is a scene where two of these devices come together, where Silver's father takes him to a funeral of someone he never knew. In considering the parallels of the event to his own situation, his inner thoughts manifest themselves out loud without him realizing it -- he starts singing Amazing Grace, a Christian hymn at a Jewish funeral. But it works -- for him and for the mourners. That is when he realizes what his father is doing by taking him to these events. It is a minor epiphany, a mid-act climax, en route to his ultimate life-affirming epiphany and the book's final climax.

The only consistent criticism of any weight against this book is that it again adheres to Tropper's literary formula. That's probably because it is maybe half a star below This Is Where I Leave You, the book that readers know best and love most, the one through which most return readers discovered Tropper. OK, fair enough, even though I personally still haven't had enough and am looking forward to JT's next book, whenever that may come out.

Problem is, that looks like may be never. Who knew that when he titled this book he was talking about his own career as a novelist, now focusing totally a TV crime drama (with the exception of the screenplay for Kodachrome, which goes back to the dying dad trope, but devoid of laughs).

I would listen to John Shea read a shopping list!

What made the experience of listening to One Last Thing Before I Go the most enjoyable?

Narrator John Shea rocks this one.

What did you like best about this story?

This is my second Tropper audiobook. Both were good. But I really loved this one.

Which character – as performed by John Shea – was your favorite?

Oh please don't make me pick. Silver, Casey, Denise, Denise's husband...every one was spot on.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Loved the moment when Silver wakes up in the hospital and finds his ex, Denise, sitting there.

Surprisingly Good

I am not sure why I did not expect much from this book, but it was thoroughly enjoyable. It was not up to parr with a Richard Russo story but follows similar lines. The main character is a bit of a screw up and does not deny or hide from that. He is estranged from most everyone he has ever loved. Then his daughter confides in him. Shortly after that they both have a decision to make. The story is told well, narrated wonderfully, and keeps you interested. The ending is superb.

Worst Tropper Book

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

The narrator was horrible. He has the voice of an old man, yet the character is early 40's. He reads this with way too much inflection. It just doesn't go along with what is being said.

Would you recommend One Last Thing Before I Go to your friends? Why or why not?

I kept wondering whether I might have liked this book if I had read it, or if there was a different narrator. Hard to tell. The story was not that great. I love Tropper, but this was very sub-par.

Raspy, wheezing narration

What could have made this a 4 or 5-star listening experience for you?

Different narrator. The book is hardly in the class with Tropper's others, but still his skill for describing every day events in a way that these things actually happen makes his stories awfully appealing.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Though I've never understood the appeal of listening to 8or more hours of raspy diction, I have dealt with it. Add the wheezy element, though, and i feel as if i might as well be listening to a feeble Burl Ives narrate a B'rer Rabbit tale. I concur with some reviewers that relatively mild tonal variations for various speakers is always a plus, although listening to an 18 year old girl who sounds like Burl Ives is disconcerting.