The novel does get off to a slow start, with an unnecessarily drawn-out description of a luxury hotel. But it picks up speed as it moves backward in time, from the lovers' vividly evoked interlude in Africa, to their adolescent years in the Massachusetts village of Hull, and finally to Linda's deepest, darkest secret. Only then does the author unveil her final revelation, which should leave most readers somewhat out of breath, and possibly even obliged to turn back to the first page and read the book over again. Shreve is a canny storyteller, and she knows her characters inside and out. (As well she might: Thomas is the husband of Jean, the photographer in The Weight of Water.) And The Last Time They Met is yet another example of the kind of book she does best--one that's as skillfully plotted as a thriller, but with writing that lingers long after the last plot twist is unfurled. No matter whether people actually have affairs like these. Reading this book only makes you wish that they did. --Mary Park

Product Description
At a literary festival, a poet named Linda Fallon meets, for the first time in years, fellow poet Thomas Janes, whose fame has grown during a decade of seclusion. This is no chance meeting, however, since Thomas saw where Linda was scheduled to appear and chose that moment to re-establish contact with the woman he passionately pursued years earlier, in an affair that ended disastrously. As the story moves backward, it examines the extraordinary resonance a single choice, even a single word, can have over the course of a lifetime.

In "The Last Time They Met", Anita Shreve writes a story that reveals secret after secret that makes you gasp at even single words she uses. Her writing is razor-sharp and so cleverly crafted that each time a secret is unveiled, you have to go back to the first clue and marvel and how she got there.

This is a wonderful novel about "might-have-beens" and "should-have-dones" and the regrets and decisions that make the tapestry of a life. Well done, Anita!!


Back to the Future with Anita Shreve   August 30, 2001
 31 out of 38 found this review helpful

I've read all the reviews that praise this book, and all that lambast it as a total waste of time. Truthfully, my own opinion lies somewhere in the middle. This was my first Anita Shreve novel and I was disenchanted by her unsympathetic characters, disjointed writing, and annoying use of italics. On the other hand, I did enjoy the story of first love, true love. If everyone has a soul mate, then surely Thomas Janes was that to Linda Fallon and vice versa. Perhaps no love is quite like that first great love that totally engulfs you and colors all your relationships after that. Linda and Thomas seemed to be proof that marriage to others, bearing children with another, and enjoying a highly successful career could not diminish the love they shared in high school. They both knew their love was one that would fill a lifetime with joy and devotion. Perhaps the best thing I can say about this novel is that Anita Shreve did a masterful job of building suspense to reach the chilling and shocking conclusion. Only because she had aroused my curiosity could I muddle through this often boring story to find out what happened to Linda and Thomas. Would they be together again? Would their horrible secret from high school ever be revealed? And what exactly did Thomas do at the writers convention in Toronto that set tongues wagging? It was often hard to follow them as the writer took us backwards in time, but I was glad I stayed around for the last page and the split second that changed everything.


Just didn't buy it   April 11, 2001
 27 out of 32 found this review helpful

Long awaited, Shreve's newest novel seems to have left myself and my coworkers (librarians) simply shrugging our shoulders. Shreve did not convince me that this romance moved the Heaven and Earth at all. Linda and Thomas each had their problems. But the romance?, the fire burning deep within?, I didn't get it. Very good story. But after I am finished, I am still awaiting a climax.


I have never been so disappointed in an ending!   June 10, 2001
 25 out of 30 found this review helpful

So many of these reviews state that Anita Shreve writes too much about adultery. That is the least of this book's problems. In this novel, it wasn't just adultery per se. I can understand the dilemma Thomas and Linda were in: being in love, being separated and never stopping loving one another, then meeting up again years later while married to other people but still wanting (not just in the sexual sense) each other. I can totally understand this, because it really happens--I know from personal experience. It is tragic to know that just because of one decision years ago, you are not with the love of your life, and the other person feels the same way. Anyway, for this reason, I guess, the first and second parts of the book were gripping to me and completely held my attention. I was very distracted by the way spoken conversations were portrayed--not in quotations, but set apart in italics--but I overlooked that. I was worried that because it was going in reverse chronological order, I wouldn't find out if they stayed together when they were middle-aged. I let that slide too. I felt so for Thomas and Linda and the way their lives had unfolded and the tragedy they had endured, I actually cared about them as characters. I was bugged by the very obscure--too obscure--references the author made to the incidents that drove them apart in the past. The reader shouldn't have been kept in the dark for three-fourths of the book. Still, I plodded on, determined to see what happened. I cannot tell you how utterly (mad) I was at the end of this book!!! It was as if Anita Shreve said, "Oh, crap, I have to send this to the publisher tomorrow--I need an ending--okay, there it is!" (I don't want to give anything away to the poor saps who haven't read it yet.) What a contrived, lazy way to end the book that was. And I still didn't know what happened--was it Linda's future flashing before her eyes, or was this some poppycock that Thomas had imagined in his head? (Although some of it was true, considering the reference to his daughter.) There was no way to tell! I don't mind a book that leaves me thinking. But this was just ridiculous. I slogged my way through that convoluted story (and it was slow reading--she spends too much time on descriptions of things) and got no reward whatsoever at the end. I have never felt so cheated by a novel's ending.It just came out of nowhere! I read "The Pilot's Wife" and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to reading this book, especially since my best friend told me I would enjoy it due to the situational similarities. However, she was in the middle of the book also--she called me to apologize when we both finished it for even recommending it, due to the ending. Surely she can do better than this. And if anyone figures out what the heck actually happened, let me know!


Perfectly Excruciating   June 27, 2001
 23 out of 32 found this review helpful

Did you like "Dynasty"? Do you watch soap operas? Are you interested in wasting your time reading novels that don't have a shred of honesty in any single passage? If so,THE LAST TIME THEY MET, by Anita Shreve, is tailor-made for you.

I only finished reading it because it made me so angry that the author was using fifteen grandiose pompous words to say one thing in every overweighted, phoney paragraph that I felt compelled to finish it, and then, when I was done, come on and WARN you. I'm telling you, I was shocked--that's right, SHOCKED, that this book got the good press that it did. I'm not kidding. I love good books and this is not a good book. This is a book that I would call, at best, slick.

Granted, I did not read Shreve's other novels first, but who is to say that that means a book shouldn't stand on its own? A BOOK SHOULD ALWAYS STAND ON ITS OWN. So I don't buy the excuse that one of Shreve's other books had the same characters, and it would change my opinion of this novel if I had read that one first. There is never any excuse for dishonest writing.

All my life I have respected and honored good writing. This book is a calculated piece of junk that possesses no human feeling. Anyone who has ever had a moment of true sadness, or has ever felt real love, will know immediately, that, like a "chick flick", this book is a mere form of escapism, and an insult to any reader who cares about quality writing, true passion and real love. There. I have said my piece about the betrayal that is this book.