A big THANK YOU to John Hart for making this round of Book Club such a wonderful success! We’ll send an e-mail soon announcing our next selection for another great Davidson-style discussion of words and ideas that matter. Thanks again, John Hart, and all who participated!
Interview with D.G. Martin ’62 on N.C. Bookwatch
“A Novel Approach,” Davidson Journal, Summer 2006
I’m looking forward to reading this book and discussing it with you. Please post a comment here so that we’ll know who’s in!
EDG here — ALL IN. Can’t wait!
And just so you know… leaving a comment requires a one-time login process. It’s quick and easy and once you do all future posts are pre-approved and don’t require moderation!
Would love to participate!
Testing, per John Syme’s request. That said, I’ve read this book and *greatly* enjoyed it!
What a wonderful introduction! Can’t wait to be part of the discussion.
I’m in.
LOVED it! Have even stalked John Hart via e-mail when I discovered he was a grad – I look forward to his next book. I’ll revisit this book to join a substantive discussion, and I look forward to it.
I’m in and just downloaded book to my iPhone Kindle.
Rich Steck, BS ’53
Count me in.
I and my wife are in. We downloaded the audiobook and listened to it for our entire six hour drive from Atlanta to Charleston! I can’t wait to find opportunities to listen to more before we finish it on our way back home.
Having just read the large print edition from the local library, I anticipate finding and maybe also trying to express, some worthwhile consideration of John Hart’s beyond-ordinary thriller.
I intend to finish the book this weekend, but am wondering if there is a “go” date for discussion? (sorry if I missed it) I just don’t want to start talking about anything that might interfere with anyone else’s enjoyment of discovering the evolution and conclusion of the book!
Downloaded The Last Child to my Kindle. Just started reading – up to the body being found under the bridge.
I’m in! Moving The Last Child to the top of the to be read stack.
We just finished the book. Wow.
Though a “last child” apprehension threads the narrative, in several respects the “last child” is Levi Freemantle, “Last Child of Isaac,” as his headstone commemorates. The biblical story of the near sacrifice then saving of Isaac because of God’s explicit directions suggests an allusive foundation for Levi’s theological voices. And his having been named Levi rather than Esau or Jacob fits his bloody revenge for the death-by-negligence of his own “last child.” Freemantle’s childlike mentality also is essential to the story and to its conclusion.
According to the main plot, childhood and childlikeness are under mysterious and dreadful attack; and the official, standardized procedures used to discover and defend against those attacks repeatedly fail. The grown-ups are preoccupied with requirements, routine, jealousies, addiction, and warped priorities.
The striving for discovery, understanding, and justice (though tainted by revenge)
comes mainly from a youth and from an official who cares especially for that youth
and for the youth’s mother.
One of the most engaging and refreshing aspects of the book’s emphasis on youth
as both victim of and remedy for destruction — with a sad caveat for the family-imposed superstitions of Jack and the captivation of Jack’s brother by athletic
stardom — is a childlike attention to literature and language throughout. When Johnny slaps his chewing gum onto the Alligator River Raptor Preserve sign, we know that the presence of youth is going to challenge the language of officialdom from that point on.
In some ways the book is about language or about a needed awareness of language. When, for example, Hunt stands “beneath a blanket of ink” (Chapter 13), though we get the sky description, we are also invited to imagine the story on the printed page. Another obvious calling of attention to the language occurs with Jack’s and Johnny’s pondering “a murder of crows.” It is almost as though Hart is hinting to us, “Remember ‘An Exaltation of Larks’ by James Lipton?” And Hart makes up the wonderful “a dusting of reporters” (Chapter 18).
Youthful imagination comes alive through allusions, too. Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer make brief, distanced appearances as Hart’s narrative takes us to a riverbank where Johnny and Jack drink beer (Huck and Tom not included) and smoke. And when Johnny persuasively stresses to Jack the prospect of an adventure, Twain’s Tom especially comes to mind. Another reference to children comes by way of explicit reference to “The Lord of the Flies.”
A contrasting allusion to grown-ups appears in Yoakum’s conviction that “Darkness is a cancer of the human heart,” which saying suggests Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” itself an exploration of the loss of youth.
If one is inclined to consider the whole import, a realization may occur: “You know what? The ‘last child’ is the last reader, who, in this case, is you.”
Luther Scales
“Luke” Class of ’53
I have so many emotions and thoughts about the book I will need to post more than once to organize it all! The first thing I want to share, and this is especially for John Hart himself, is that I am awed by his integrity in what is often a seriously troubling genre.
I almost did not participate in the Book Club this time, because when I read that the plot elements centered on (or seem to at first) issues of a female child’s abuduction and possible torture and murder by a pedophile, I felt ill. I am one of many readers who became addicted to certain kinds of books, most notably Harris, Cornwell and Patterson’s explicit sexual killing detective/crime novels. I kept telling myself it was just “beach reading” and entertainment, but I eventually became convinced that this type of writing is profoundly disrespectful of the reader.
I no longer have an interest in books that require me to collude with psychopaths. I do not want to be present when people are murdered or traumatized for pleasure and then find that I want to keep reading more (a neurological trick), which is what other authors have done to become bestselling. John Hart does an incredible job of creating enough understanding of the qualities and potential of the characters that the reader’s mind can fully comprehend the danger, pain, and fear of victims without having to experience it as a spectator. I have never read a book with such terrifying elements that the reader is encouraged to and allowed to understand, without being manipulated into being a collaborator. A perfect example is knowing that Jar and Meechum still reflect on and take pleasure in whatever they did for 3 days to a child in a hut in Vietnam with her dead parents still there. There are no details of what they did, but it is truly one of the most chilling plot elements and character portraits I have ever encountered. Thank you, John Hart, for writing a story that allows the reader to draw close to something so terrifying without requiring us to participate. It is rare, and brilliantly executed.
Naturally, I want to read the book again sometime knowing what I know now about the conclusion. I imagine my appreciation of the characters and plot will continue to grow, but I did want to share my “just finished it, here’s my absolute favorite part” with everyone in the Book Club.
As I read, I kept shaking my head over the abuse, in broad daylight, of Johnny and Katherine by Ken Holloway. I know this kind of experience is real, that it happens every day in 2010 all around us. I have some professional experience in both rural NC and WV around child welfare and vulnerable populations, and it is astonishing how people — mostly women and children — are abused and tormented right in front of an entire community that has “rules” about how to handle these things. The rules are generally there to protect everyone involved BUT those being hurt.
So, as I was falling asleep last night, thinking about the beauty of “life is a circle” and the masterful role switching with the Merrimon and Freemantle ancestors in a new salvation play, it clicked for me. Levi did more than return the historical favor, if you will. He didn’t just help Johnny and his mother, he became the abolitionist who freed the slaves, both from the tyranny of a slave “owner” in Holloway but also by setting them free from a system that trapped them from establishing their own lives outside of being controlled and abused like property instead of respected and supported as human beings. Really satisfying!
I am hoping someone else will take up a couple of things I am curious if anyone else noticed or processed. There is much going on with Levi’s memories of taking his mother from the burning house, his own fever, and the fact that little Sofia died in a hot car. Thoughts? I think my mind was racing past some things as I read that are deeper than I knew at the time. I’m also wondering if anyone else felt what I did about Spencer Merrimon, that there was no way he “left” his family after only 2 weeks and never came back. I think this is another example of John Hart’s talent, his ability to create convincing characters that you feel you KNOW something about after only a few details. I never suspected the real reason he disappeared, but I knew immediately that he did not leave his family. There are a few other examples like that for me of convincing character points that kept me questioning things in the story, but maintained the mystery. The characters are so well drawn!
Thanks for reading and logging in and commenting, everyone! I am early in the book myself, so am scanning comments for approval now, and will be back soon to jump in to the full discussion! More importantly, so will John Hart himself. Peter will post an update on the timing for that soon. Keep reading and writing!
I’d like to join your book club. Sign me up. I’ve loved John’s first two books and look forward to this one. By the way John lives two blocks from me and has attended our book club here in Greensboro.
David ’66
The book finally arrived yesterday. I’m 5o pages in and enjoying it!
I’m loving this lively conversation as people read (and some finish!) this book. I’m right at the part where…. well, I’ll tell you later. And I’ll look forward to (re)reading some of the great, in-depth posts already here very soon! In the meantime…
NEWS FLASH: John Hart himself will join our discussion soon! Alumni Director Peter Wagner ’92 reports that John said on the phone this morning that he will comment here as his writing and travel schedule permit, and he is looking forward to participating especially actively in the discussion with his fellow Davidson alumni Dec. 18-23.