The Last Summer: Brian Buckley's Final Diary : Edited With an Introduction by Howard Fine. This item is unavailable.The Last Summer: Brian Buckley's Final Diary : Edited With an Introduction by Howard Fine

A novel, written in diary form, about a professor dying of cancer and trying desperately to pack his erudition into his son, who prefers video games and Coca-Cola to opera. The diary entries also detail a lifetime of failed--and yet tender and amusing--relationships.

Took Chris out by the farms tonight to see the evening sky, Venus just above the horizon, a little below and to the left of Pollux and Castor, the twins... Then talked to him a little about ancient myth. "That's all anyone lived for. Like the story of Ishtar going through seven gates into the Underworld, at every gate taking off some jewels, being followed into the Underworld by this boatman in his boat. It's really Venus in the Fall, the receding from the Earth (the taking off of the jewels), then Mars (the boatman) inside a crescent moon (the boat) following Venus over the horizon. That's the Babylonian legend. Among the Greeks it's Orpheus with his lyre/harp, Mars (Orpheus) inside the crescent moon, which is the lyre, following Venus (Eurydice) down into the Underworld--which simply means over the horizon." "Can I go to Seven-Eleven for a slurpie now?" he asks. "Why not?"