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Summary: Lively melodrama of the Northwest frontier in the 1870s.
Review: In this broad saga of the New Territories, from Montana into Canada, Guy Vanderhaeghe brings to life the search of two Englishmen for their lost brother, Simon Gaunt, who has pursued a charismatic preacher in the hopes of converting the Indians to Christianity. No word has been heard from him in over a year. While twin brother Charles genuinely misses Simon, older brother Addington sees the search as a grand, selfish adventure-an excuse to hunt at his father's expense. The three brothers share the same blood and have had the same upbringing, but they have taken very different paths in life, and the sojourn in North America provides the stimulus which allows each one to discover his own inner nature. As Addington becomes more brutal and selfish, Charles becomes more sensitive and realistic. Gradually, an image of Simon emerges, through Charles's descriptions, as a "man dreaming so deeply as to be incapable of wakening to reality."As the search party departs, every member is seeking some kind of love, acceptance, and a sense of connection to the wider world. Jerry Potts, the scout, is half Scots and half Blackfoot Indian and yearns for his small son from whom he is estranged. Lucy Stoveall is searching for the brutal killers of her 13-year-old sister Madge Dray. Custis Straw, who loves Lucy, suffers from nightmares about the Civil War and the loss of his family. Addington, who becomes deranged as time progresses, hunts and kills animals and Indians for the sheer bloodlust. Constant motifs of blood and bloodlines pervade the novel, as the trip challenges each member to understand who s/he is by birth and who s/he has become through the accidents of history. The great Northwest, with the power and grandeur of its scenery, its wildlife, and its rapidly changing weather provides for innumerable dramatic scenes. The honorable and caring Lucy and the venal Addington are as much the personifications of good and evil as the heroines and villains in western melodrama. Ultimately, all the plot elements unite in a satisfying conclusion which extends twenty-five years beyond the search for Simon and ties up loose ends. Rousing and absorbing, this melodrama highlights the settlement of the frontier at the expense of Indian cultures, and one can almost hear echoes of a melancholy honkytonk piano in the background. Mary Whipple
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Summary: Beautiful novel of the late 19th century West
Review: Once I got started, I couldn't stop reading this sweeping novel, set in the American and Canadian West at the end of the 19th century. Vanderhaeghe shows us the encounter between Europeans and Aboriginals as well as among different First Nations during a key historical period in European expansion into the West. The character of Jerry Potts was very well drawn; I found his story very moving and I liked the way his character framed the novel at each end. This novel stayed with me for many days afterwards, as I turned it over in my mind.
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Summary: Duty, honor, and love, sublimely rendered
Review: Once in awhile, a book comes along that haunts its readers' thoughts for years. The Last Crossing is such a book. Set in the latter part of the 1800s, in the western U.S. and Canada, and in Victorian England, this is a tale of a a man lost in the wilderness, and those who seek to find him, including his very stiff British father, two very different brothers, a pair of star-crossed lovers, a quirky journalist, a saloon-keeper, and an Indian guide. They all suffer from painful pasts that taunt them into life-changing courses of action. Telling the story from their own points of view, the characters look back at their own lives. This drives each of them to live up to their sense of duty, to defend their own honor, and ultimately to act in one way or another because they either love, or can't love. Scenes of the early west tear at the heart--caravans, Indian villages, conflicts, battles, disease, death, tragedy, comic relief. And love, sometimes unrequited, and at a distance. There is one scene that will stay with me for years. In it, two lovers find each other, their desperate searches ending and beginning in an instant. The night air, the stars, the prairie wind and their hearts carry them to where they couldn't dream of going. The characters speak with undeniable truth to and about themselves. They narrate, but also wonder about their own personal honor and how they can love despite their pasts and the hard lessons that duty and love teach them.
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Summary: "A boom town draws rogues like a jam jar draws wasps."
Review: Part historical drama, romance, and character study THE LAST CROSSING has a lot to offer - and rightly so. Hailed as a bestseller in Canada for two years and only recently published in the United States I've been waiting patiently to get my hands on a copy of this book and now I'm far from being disappointed. Guy Vanderhaeghe takes the reader on an adventure through the British Territory (Canada) filled with remarkable characters and wonderful prose. At the center of the novel are Charles and Addington Gaunt who are sent from England to North America in 1871 by their overbearing father to track down their missing brother Simon who has mysteriously disappeared. After arriving Charles is distressed to learn that Addington is not as concerned about Simon; in fact, Addington has hired a writer to document his journey through the Frontier in an effort to later write a book. The Gaunt's caravan into the British Territory in search of Simon is without incident or danger. Vast and wild pastures filled with dueling Indian tribes and scrupulous whisky traders provide the grand backdrop to this impressive tale. To complement the depth and realization of the landscape Vanderhaughe does a great job of getting into the heads of his characters. I was deeply impressed with his depiction of Charles' torment and grief over his stressed relationship with Simon, and how he wishes he could mend the fences between them. Another successful aspect was how multiple narrators were utilized which enables the reader to gain a better-rounded perspective unlike the reliance of one narrator. It's rare indeed that I become so enthralled while reading a book that I virtually sink into the prose and see the story unfolding in three-dimension around me, and that was exactly what happened each time I picked up this book. For this simple fact I wouldn't hesitate but recommend this book to others. It's been well worth the wait.
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Summary: Great novel about the real wild west
Review: Set in the late 1800's around the character Simon Gaunt an idealistic young gentleman from England who goes as a missionary to the New World to convert Indians. He disappears and when no word is heard from him back at home, his father sends Simon's two brothers, his twin Charles and the elder brother Addington to the New World on a mission to find Simon and bring him home. "The Last Crossing" is the story of their journey away from civilization and into the raw wilderness. Some unforgettable scenes for me were the dance at Fort Edmonton, the "ghost village" where everyone had died of smallpox, the story of the Blackfoot going south past Salt Lake on a raid for horses, and the grizzly hunt. The story is usually told in the first person, but with continually changing and fascinating viewpoints as there are 6 different main narrators - the two brothers Charles and Addington, - Jerry Potts, the half Blackfoot/half Scottish hired guide, - Lucy Stoveall, a woman with her own motivations for accompanying the posse, - Custis Straw who is in pursuit of Lucy, and Aloysius, the saloon owner going after Custis for his own protection. The characters are richly developed and believable, all completely different, some more likable than others. I read this book in a day and a half, reading whenever I got an opportunity, it was so hard to put down and the ending was great and uplifting, filled with possibilities. Guy Vanderhaeghe is one of those authors whose books get better and better, I first read "Homesick", a moving family story, then "The Englishman's Boy", an intriguing look at early Hollywood and the wild west and now this "The Last Crossing", not just a western but really suspenseful historical literature.
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Summary: Compelling read
Review: Some books one devours, some one lingers over. I just wolfed down The Last Crossing; now I'm slowly enjoying a second read. Such a wealth of characters, such fine historical detail, wonderfully researched and poetically rendered. It takes time to grow accustomed to the book's language, which is period-authentic - "pettifogging," "purloined" ... "Ellie Venables had fairly sickened with indignation at their pussillanimity." Such is the discourse of Oxford-educated Victorians. The words grow lean and dusty as the brothers Gaunt travel west and land in the fly-blown midwest, a landscape filled with whiskey-slugging Civil War veterans, barroom philosophes and thuggish hired hands. The major set pieces are vivid and violent, Addington Gaunt is a genuinely evil piece of work, the battle recreations are staggering...
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Summary: Hard to put down!
Review: Stunning, rich, exquisite characterization, finely-honed plot...you name it and this book has it. Guy Vanderhaeghe has re-created a historical period here that is timeless and universal in its themes of love, revenge, and family connections yet utterly believable in its deceptively simple plot. I fell in love with the naive Charles Gaunt and was properly contemptuous of his take-charge brother, Addison. The characters of Jerry Potts, Custis Straw and Lucy are complex yet they defy simple pigeonholes. I took the risk of reading this library book in the bathtub (one of my favorite forms of relaxation) since I couldn't stop reading it in my spare time. A thoroughly engaging read!
Sue-Ellen Stillwell Jones
Librarian
Fort Collins, Colorado
Rating:
Summary: Top-notch
Review: The good news is that Canadian writer Guy Vanderhaeghe has published six other books besides this one. This is important because once you finishedhis new novel "The Last Crossing" you will be scouring libraries, bookstores, and the internet for more. What a good writer! His 1996 novel "The Englishman's Boy" was also excellent, but his newest book reaches an even higher level. His use of multiple points of view is marvelous and the characters have a depth and appeal that adds excitement, pathos, and surprise to a really good plot. In the 1870's, a young Englishman named Simon Gaunt travels into Montana as a missionary and vanishes. His difficult, heartbroken father orders his two other sons to go to Ft. Benton and find him at all costs. Addington is a disgraced military man and Simon's twin Charles is a painter disappointed in himself for his own shallow nature. Charles is desperate to find Simon but Addington seems to look on the whole trip as one big outdoor adventure, showing up at the fort with a seedy, sycophantic "newspaperman" who plans to record Addington's feats in the wilderness for the penny press. They contract the Blackfoot/Scottish guide Jerry Potts to lead them, but by the time the Gaunts' wagons leave Ft. Benton, they have also collected a woman searching for her sister's killer and are trailed by the man who loves her, and who in turn is trailed by his best friend. The search for the missing missionary is in danger of being derailed by the quirks and passions of his search party. But Simon Gaunt remains the lodestar for this group, and only later do we find out why. "The Last Crossing" is satisfying, readable, thoughtful, and thrilling. If you have not read Guy Vanderhaeghe before, he is a wonderful discovery.
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Summary: Fine Novel by a Skilled Author
Review: The Last Crossing is a soulful story of several colorful characters who come together for various reasons to trek across the North American Midwest in the 1800s. Author Guy Vanderhaeghe is very adept at painting vivid scenes and portraying his characters.
Overall I found reading this novel to be a rewarding experience. Having said this, there were passages where I felt the story dragged, and I found the plot hard to follow. On the other hand, there were many engaging, suspenseful sections that I will remember for some time.
Vanderhaeghe applies a very rich vocabulary in this work. While I consider myself to be well read, I encountered at least fifty words I had never encountered before. I consoled myself with the belief that most of those words were used in the 1850s, and have since fallen out of favor. Vanderhaeghe's writing reflects a wealth of research that he evidently did on the era and places in question.
Anyone interested in getting a feel for the way in which North American Aboriginal and British cultures related to each other will want to read this book. The era described by the novel is the period between native Americans having the continent to themselves, and the British and Europeans dominating the land and its aboriginal inhabitants - a period marked by a mixture of violence, cooperation and assimilation.
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Summary: richly woven text with subtle character development
Review: The Last Crossing was a book I read after it won the CBC Canada Reads contest. I love Canadian literature and had never read this author's work before so I thought I would give it a shot.
While I found the characters and the plot a little masculine at first, I was soon swept into the adventure of the search for Simon Gaunt. I didn't feel any special attachment to the characters, but I was reluctant for their personal tragedies to be resolved. Believing I knew how the book ended, the author surprised me by depriving me of the predictability of it, and I found myself deeply invested in the resolution of everyone's journey.
Really a fantastic book--one that I thought about long after it finished.
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