The Last Time They Met opens with two old lovers, both
poets, running into each other at a writer's conference.
Well, Linda Fallon and Thomas Janes aren't old,
actually--just middle-aged, with a lifetime's worth of
history between them. In the first section, Anita Shreve
only suggests what that history contains: there was
adultery, we gather, and a car accident, plus some illicit
encounters under a pitiless Kenyan sun. Presumably the rest
of the book will lead back to the beginnings of this grand
passion, right? We think we know where this is going--but
that's the tricky part, because we don't.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
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