The Last Lovely City

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A superb new collection from the greatly admired storyteller whose work "recall[s] such past masters as Flannery O'Connor and Katherine Mansfield" (Jim Baker,Newsweek). The Last Lovely City begins with nine stories whose settings range from San Francisco to a North Carolina college town to a run-down Mexican resort. In "His Women," a college professor and his ex-wife play an extended game of let's-kiss-and-make-up, revealing the history of their flirtations and infidelities. In "The Islands," a young widow mourns the loss of her cat more profoundly than the recent death of her husband. And in the title story, a view of San Francisco from the beach brings an old doctor, known for his generosity, to the sudden realization that the glory, innocence, and passion the city once represented to him are now lost forever, as he faces up to the way he has accrued the money to support his good works. The four stories in part two take on the shape of a novel. Lila Lewisohn, a divorced psychiatrist, finds her private life beginning to fuse with the lives of her patients, their husbands, and their lovers. A brilliant collection that envelops us in the richness of the worlds that Alice Adams has so masterfully created.