Last Comes the Egg - Softcover

Duffy, Bruce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567921248 ISBN 13: 9781567921243

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 2001

Synopsis

Bruce Duffy's first novel, The World As I Found It, was universally acclaimed as "astonishing," "spectacular," "vivid, passionate and funny." A dream debut, it raised the stakes for his second book irrationally high. To his credit, Duffy decided to write an entirely different story, a book that is tender, compassionate, vaguely autobiographical, set squarely in the sixties, and told through the eyes of a precocious, articulate and unforgettable twelve year old boy. This is no mean feat, for twelve year old boys, especially ones from dysfunctional Catholic families, growing up in the straitlaced suburbs of Maryland, are not always the best narrators. But in Frank, who observes the world with a wry detachment and a wise sense of what is right, wrong, and just plain cockeyed, we encounter a voice that says more about race, class, gender, even sex, than anyone since Salinger.

Like Twain's Huckleberry Finn, another book set "forty or fifty years ago," Duffy understands that there was never an end to American innocence because there never was an innocence to end. And like Huck, Frank has his own adventures; a trip into the Southern heartland with Loomis, a latter-day Artful Dodger, and Sheppy, an older black boy who seems ready to explode at any minute. Full of character, nuance, and adventure, this is not an easy novel, but it is a brilliant one, a book you won't soon get out of your head. A Nonpareil Book by David R. Godine.

About this title

Review

Bruce Duffy achieved remarkable acclaim for his first book, The World As I Found It, a sweeping novel of ideas centering around the difficult personality of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ten years later, Mr. Duffy has produced a new book with a deceptively simple premise: a young boy copes with the loss of his mother during the tumultuous civil rights era. In a lesser writer's hands, Last Comes the Egg might have been just another coming-of-age novel, but Mr. Duffy takes the ordinary and makes something uncommon out of it. After his mother's death, 12-year-old protagonist Frank Dougherty takes off in a stolen car with two companions: Alvy, a tragically damaged altar boy; and Sheppy, an older African American boy with his own set of problems.

Duffy displayed fearlessness in tackling Wittgenstein in his first novel; he puts it to the test again by confronting race issues here. Throughout Last Comes the Egg the prose soars, the characters fascinate, and the journey is both harrowing and riveting.

About the Author

Duffy grew up in Garrett Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington D.C. He cites the death of his mother by medical malpractice when he was eleven as the trauma that drove him to be a writer. His first novel, The World as I Found It, was called one of "five great nonfiction novels" by Joyce Carol Oates. He received a Whiting Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship in the year following the novel's publication. He has also contributed to Harper's Magazine, Time Magazine and Life magazine, among others. He currently lives outside of Washington, D.C. with his wife, who is a psychotherapist.

About this edition

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1567921248
• ISBN 13: 9781567921243
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 359