Published in 1999
272 pages
Jenny Offill is an American author born in Massachusetts. Her first novel Last Things was published in 1999 was a New York Times Notable book and a finalist for the L.A Times First Book Award.
She is also the co-editor with Elissa Schappell of two anthologies of essays and the author of several children’s books She teaches in the MFA programs at Brooklyn College, Columbia University and Queens University.
What is this book about?
Grace’s father believes in science and builds his daughter a dollhouse with lights that really work. Grace’s mother takes her skinny-dipping in the lake and teaches her about African hyena men who devour their wives in their sleep. Grace’s world, of fact and fiction, marvels and madness, is slowly unraveling because her family is coming apart before her eyes. Now eight-year-old Grace must choose between her two very different, very flawed parents, a choice that will take her on a dizzying journey, away from her home in Vermont to the boozy, flooded streets of New Orleans–and into the equally wondrous and frightening realm of her own imagination.
With eloquence and compassion, Jenny Offill weaves a luminous story of a wounded family and of a young girl yearning to understand the difference between fiction, fact, and hope. A novel of vibrant imagination and searing intelligence, Last Things is a stunning literary achievement.
