Exley's writing style and substance have changed remarkably little given the score of years it encompasses. His first novel, A Fan's Notes (1968), predates by twenty years Last Notes from Home, the final tome in an autobiographical trilogy. As with A Fan's Notes and Pages from a Cold Island (1975), Last Notes from Home is narrated by Fred Exley, an admittedly fictionalized protagonist whose character is, nonetheless, largely informed by authorial experience. Because Exley began this tripartite "fictional memoir" relatively late in life, all three volumes are retrospective and focus on recurrent concerns and epochs. Consistent, too, is the author's postmodern paradigm for writing fiction, his use of nonlinear narrative chronology, and his thematic emphasis on psychic incompletion.

Inasmuch as Exley's novels do differ, it is tone that sets each apart: Last Notes from Home is far less bitter in its condemnation of the American Dream than Exley's...