The Last Best Hope

By Peter Tauber

Book Overview

The exuberant best seller of two young lovers caught up in the violence, madness and magnificence of the American 60's. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0151483779
• ISBN13: 9780151483778
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Harcourt
• Length: 628 Pages
• Weight: 2.40 lbs.

Customer Reviews

best and worst of times

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Charles Dickens said it at the beginning of his story about revolution, love and lost dreams. Peter Tauber could have said the same at the start of The Last Best Hope. Fact of the matter is both stories have a preternatural similarity that says much more about life than about two authors from wildly different points of view. Coming of age in the 1960s, Tauber carried the burden of privilege, obligation and socio-political awareness with which all white middle class baby-boomers were burdened. The battles fought to escape or remain affected us all in myriad and more than a few found neither side of the cultural fence to be all it was cracked up to be. The story's protagonist was no different even though his epiphany and subsequent rapture is harsher than most. "You can't always get what you want," said the Stones, "but sometimes you get what you need." Another reviewer used the title American Beauty. If this referenced the movie rather than the Grateful Dead album or a cynical aside, then I applaud that person. That movie is the lineal descendant of The Last Best Hope. While many of you may disagree with the Old Testament implications of this comment, it is nonetheless what happened here, though perhaps with overtones that are Shakespearean. One can try to do his/her best but sometimes the fates are going to step in and let you have it. Maybe it's the result of vacillation; maybe it's comeuppance for not taking a stand earlier and maybe it's a case of no good deed going unpunished. Our notional hero exits college and becomes a member - or at least works for - the establishment. That it is the military/industrial complex makes the temptation and conflict at once deeper and more insidious. All the while his success in this arena is made somewhat distasteful by who and what his muse is and represents. This dichotomy is what I found most thought provoking in the book. How does one balance wants and needs, hopes and dreams, plans and schemes and just where does/should making a living fit into the equation? This is a wonderfully crafted story about a time of great impact to me personally. I found the ending to be devastating (I hadn't a clue until it happened) and - after some consideration of the use of that certain event - to have been the appropriate vehicle to an appropriate end. This is a far cry from `Sunshine Soldiers,' Tauber's first book, a names-have-been-changed-to-protect-the-innocent comedic romp through basic training seen through the eyes of a reservist. Curiously, the distance is about the same as for this story's lead character as it was for the author.

Realistic view for those of us that weren't there . . .

I first read this book my freshman year of high school for honors History class. I must say, at the age of 14 I found the book overwhelming. Tauber gives what I now know are very accurate depictions of the social environment of the 60's/70's. The characters come to life in such a way that one can identify with them and understand the emotions of the time. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the social atmosphere of the 60s/70s. For anyone who wasn't grown or even born at this time, reading this book will give you such a great insight into what was going on and why it was such a turbulent time in our history.

American Beauty

At the time I first read this book I was living in Africa, fairly disinteresteed in the boomer generation, and this was the book that turned it around. In many ways it was my first introduction to the decade, the way it was experienced here in the US, and also to the modern American psyche. Although it is a brilliant comment on the politics and mores of the time, the driving force throughout is the accurate, human, living characters that inhabit and inspire the novel. On top of the sometimes bleak, sometimes ecstatic narative thread, is the most poignant, wonderful love afair. Honest, not a word of schmaltz. I am perhaps biased by over 10 yrs of fond absence from this fantastic book, and I must confess that I'm more interested in finding a back copy than giving a constructive, objective review.

Depicts the late '60's better than anything else I've read.

I've read this book 3 times, the first time being about 20 years ago. The characters are accurate representations of the various factions that dominated the era. For someone who was just old enough to (16-17) to witness the period, without having as much at stake as those slightly older, this book reveals how much was sacrificed by the Vietnam generation. I keep hoping that someday Tauber will write a sequel which will let us know what happened to Willie, Joanna and the rest after 1970.

A great review of growing up in the 60's and 70's.

First of all I must point out that I read this book more than 15 years ago. It was a book that was passed around to so many people that the last time I saw my copy it had rubber bands holding it together. More important was the fact that people of all ages and backgrounds read it and took their own special meaning from the lives portrayed. This is probably the single best fictional historic account of a person coming of age in the 60's and 70's ever found. The characters were all reasoned and presented the joys and frustrations of an era that saw some of the best and worst times of the modern era. If anyone wants to understand where baby-boomers came from, and how they lost their souls, this is the book.