Last Notes from Home Summary
Frederick Exley

Last Notes from Home Summary

Last Notes from Home revisits themes Exley introduces in previous novels: the "myth" of the American Dream, the demise of heroes, personal failure, and our societal fascination with alcoholism and madness. Whether examining, through his characters, how our heroes have toppled or why so many in America seek solace in alcohol, Exley underscores the need he and his readers seem to share for an imagined, Utopian life beyond the drudgery of day-to-day existence. Last Notes from Home is, in part, a eulogy—to youthful ideals forgone, to brotherly love and, finally, to the inimitable, interminable bonds of home.

Set largely on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, the action of this novel is refracted always through the eyes of Ex, a narrator who spent his formative years in Watertown, New York, and who is never far, for long, in body or spirit from that...

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