LAST HOUSE: Reflections, Dreams, and Observations, 1943-1991 - Hardcover

Fisher, M.F.K.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679439080 ISBN 13: 9780679439080

Publisher: Pantheon, 1995

Synopsis

The final volume in a trilogy of selections from the journals, short stories, and correspondence of one of America's best-loved writers. With style, humor, and spare, elegant prose, Fisher retraces her adventures in France as a young housewife, recalls her return to California, and ruminates on such favorite themes as food, literature, and relationships.

About this title

From Library Journal:

This is the last book written by Fisher prior to her death in 1992?and her third volume of memoirs, following To Begin Again (LJ 10/15/92) and Stay Me, Oh Comfort Me (LJ 9/1/93). Last House is a collection of 68 short pieces written over the last 48 years of Fisher's life, 46 of them written in the 1980s. Only three of the pieces have been previously published. This last memoir is a collection of random thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences related to such things as bugs, death, dreams, strip searches, sleeping pills, meals, suicide, and sleep. Fisher exudes a bittersweet tone that is both calming and unsettling as she writes frankly about the distastefulness of living with and caring for her elderly father; her attitudes toward people who like her; the frustration of living, aging, and dying; and her furstration and anger at being a writer unable to read, write, or speak as arthritis and Parkinson's disease overtake her. Although a few of the earlier pieces elude clear meaning and purpose, most of this collection should be read for its frankness and realism, particularly by the aging and by those caring for the aged or terminally ill.?Jeris Cassel, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

M. F. K. Fisher (1908^-92) brought great pleasure to lovers of fine prose and good food. A frank and sensual writer, she wrote with well-tempered passion about her unusual life and powerful appetites. This is her last book, and it is a fitting farewell. Fisher started this project full of ambition but completed it besieged by pain and frustration as Parkinson's disease severed the once reliable link between her crystal-clear mind and life-loving body. As Fisher had to give up first the keyboard, then the pen, she decided to mix older, never before published pieces with new ones, thus creating a wonderfully diverse set of tart and feisty reminiscences, observations, and confessions. Fisher's humor is as sharp and dry as a good martini when she writes about husbands and lovers, friends and adversaries, food and restaurants, travels and home. Her tone deepens in her final pieces as she focuses on aging and expresses her impatience with the "winding down" that precedes death, but we'll always picture Fisher bright-eyed and elegant, never missing a trick or at a loss for words. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0679439080
• ISBN 13: 9780679439080
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 286