The Last Time They Met

By: Anita Shreve

Narrated by: Lainie Cooke

A dazzling story about marriage, forgiveness, and chances not taken, by the best-selling author of Body Surfing and A Wedding in December.

At a literary festival, a poet named Linda Fallon meets for the first time in years a fellow poet, Thomas Janes, whose fame has grown during a decade of seclusion.

This is no chance meeting. Thomas saw that Linda was scheduled to appear and chose this moment to reestablish contact with a woman he had passionately pursued years earlier. Their affair was disastrous for them both, a turning point in their lives, and the damage they did in those years still haunts them both.

The Last Time They Met moves backward in time from Linda at age 52 to explore her life years earlier, at age 26, and still earlier, at 17. Anita Shreve examines the extraordinary resonance a single choice, even a single word, can have over the course of a lifetime.

©2001 Anita Shreve (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Very very slow

Anita Shreve knows how to craft a creative novel, with almost lyrical prose. THE LAST TIME THEY MET is no exception.
Linda and Thomas, poets and former lovers, are reunited at a writer's conference decades later. I don't want to say too much, to give away plot twists or spoil the book.
I thought the second section of the book, twenty-six years before the first, was less compelling than the first, but the third section more than made up for the middle part.
I didn’t understand the twist until I read spoilers. Then I had to re-listen to the audiobook end three times.

great book, weird audio volume levels

I absolutely love this book. I read it as a teenager and revisited it again like an old friend.
The narration volume would change at random times though.

Problem with the Recording

About half way through the book I started hearing an under tone using my Airbuds . The next day I heard the sane annoying background words just listening on my iPhone with no Airbuds. It was very distracting. I’m sure there was an issue with recording the second half of the story.

very good book.

the narrator was very good. The story line kept my interest but it didn't keep me captivated. I will read others by this author though.