The Last Novel - by David Markson (Paperback)

About the Book

In recent novels, which have been called "hypnotic," "stunning," and "exhilarating," David Markson has created his own personal genre. In this new work, "The Last Novel, " an elderly author (referred to only as "Novelist") announces that since this will be his final effort, he has "carte blanche to do anything he damned well pleases."
Pressed by solitude and age, Novelist's preoccupations inevitably turn to the stories of other artists -- their genius, their lack of recognition, and their deaths. Keeping his personal history out of the story as much as possible, Novelist creates an incantatory stream of fascinating triumphs and failures from the lives of famous and not-so-famous painters, writers, musicians, sports figures, and scientists.
As Novelist moves through his last years, a minimalist self-portrait emerges, becoming an intricate masterpiece from David Markson's astonishing imagination. Through these startling, sometimes comic, but often tragic anecdotes we unexpectedly discern the entire shape of a man's life.

Book Synopsis

In recent novels, which have been called "hypnotic," "stunning," and "exhilarating," David Markson has created his own personal genre. In this new work, The Last Novel, an elderly author (referred to only as "Novelist") announces that since this will be his final effort, he has "carte blanche to do anything he damned well pleases."

Pressed by solitude and age, Novelist's preoccupations inevitably turn to the stories of other artists--their genius, their lack of recognition, and their deaths. Keeping his personal history out of the story as much as possible, Novelist creates an incantatory stream of fascinating triumphs and failures from the lives of famous and not-so-famous painters, writers, musicians, sports figures, and scientists.

As Novelist moves through his last years, a minimalist self-portrait emerges, becoming an intricate masterpiece from David Markson's astonishing imagination. Through these startling, sometimes comic, but often tragic anecdotes we unexpectedly discern the entire shape of a man's life.

Review Quotes

"A cultural history of the Western world cast as a bricolage of decontextualized anecdotes, quotations, and facts . . . A lifetime's reading boiled down to sentences that have the terse clarity of epitaphs." -- James Gibbons

"Jester cousin to Pound's Cantos--notations that gradually cohere in an underlying progress, a drift toward the momentary reconciliation of art, intellect, and mortality."

"This is a novel of a thousand voices at their most concise, outrageous and most telling, indefatigably conceived and executed with a learned sparkle. It stands out as a daring tour de force (yet again), just the kind of novel only Markson would take on and do with such uncompromising elan." -- Paul West

About the Author

David Markson is the author of five novels, including Springer's Progress, Wittgenstein's Mistress, and Reader's Block. He is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Salon Book Award. He lives in New York City.