LAST HOUSE: Reflections, Dreams, and Observations, 1943-1991

by M.F.K. Fisher

Book Overview

The final volume in a trilogy of selections from the journals, short stories, and correspondence of one of America's best-loved writers. With style, humor, and spare, elegant prose, Fisher retraces her adventures in France as a young housewife, recalls her return to California, and ruminates on such favorite themes as food, literature, and relationships.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679439080
• ISBN13: 9780679439080
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Pantheon
• Length: 286 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.0" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A summary, a reflection

The great essayist Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher wrote this last volume, starting in 1943 and then in the 1990's, when Parkinson's Disease began to make it impossible for her to speak, as a sort of summary of her writings. This book gives a lot of insight into MFK Fisher's life when she returned to the US from Europe, married again after her first husband's death. Some of the writing is familiar, subjects visited before such as her life in Europe, and some is quite new, if all you've read are her classic essays in "Serve it Forth", for example. The Last House is one designed for her in Glen Ellen, California. In this house, she writes honestly of the ravages of age, incapacity, fright and regrets. It's brutally honest, as all her writing is. If you love the works of this author, this is a must-read.

A sharp, unsparing honesty

These autobiographical essays can be returned to again and again for the beauty of the writing and the startling frankness of the writer. The earlier essays explore the experiences that shaped her - trips to her beloved France, caring for an aging and difficult father, lifelong regret over an impulsive rejection of her sister, musings on literary characters, minor thieving, incidents that retain their emotional charge over decades.The second half of the book is a portrait of her own aging and increasing illness - her rages, fears and love of life. Whether baring her soul or keeping a whimsical distance, Fisher's writing has an immediacy that connects with the reader.

brutally honest, reflections on ageing

I marveled at her honesty, such as resenting looking after an ageing father or her unsent, unsympathetic letter to an elderly friend, her frustration and rage at her own diminishing health and her observation that none of us is prepared for the inevitible process leading to death.