Last Stands: Notes from Memory

"The portraits are at once funny and sad but they are portraits in the round, of people understood and accepted, and in their strong individuality, a touch of universality. A model demonstration of the uses of memory."--The New Yorker

"An immensely artful book, which is to say that the care its author has taken with his arrangements ensures the illusions of truth."--Newsweek

"The novelist's willingness to reshape time for meaning guides this memoir; so does the photographer's ability to focus, frame and crop for impact. An elegant book."--Los Angeles Times

HILARY MASTERS grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author of eight novels, two story collections, and a collection of essays. He's been a Fulbright lecturer to Finland and the recipient of Yaddo fellowships and an Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. His essays have been republished in Best American Essays and Anchor Best Essays, and his short fiction has been cited in Best American Short Stories and Pushcart. He is professor of English and creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University and lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. PHILLIP LOPATE is the author of four essay collections, two novels, and two poetry collections. He currently teaches at Hofstra University.