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The Last Book Party

by Karen Dukess

Narrator Jesse Vilinsky

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Length 6 hours 26 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“Oh, to have the wisdom and perspective of age when one is young. In 1987, Eve Rosen joins an elite seaside community as the summer assistant for a prestigious author. As their relationship turns from professional to personal, Eve gains more insight into the publishing world than she ever thought possible. Full of wistful yearning for a time long ago, The Last Book Party is a tribute to youth and its folly, all wrapped up in a gorgeous novel.”
— Pamela Klinger-Horn • Excelsior Bay Books

Bookseller recommendation

“he Last Book Party Is an engaging novel that takes place on the Cape in the 1980s. This character-driven novel centers around Eve, who meets a well-known entitled author and his artist wife. The author offers her a summer job which she accepts. Eve learns a lot from him and enjoys the cast of characters that are drawn to this couple. If you enjoy the process of writing as well as a good book, you will definitely enjoy this interesting tale. The Last Book Party is beautifully written and I was especially delighted with all the references to the sights and sounds of the 1980s. The narration was well done.”
— Melinda • Buttonwood Books and Toys

Summary
About the author

“The Last Book Party is a delight. Reading this story of a young woman trying to find herself while surrounded by the bohemian literary scene during a summer on the Cape in the late '80s, I found myself nodding along in so many moments and dreading the last page. Karen Dukess has rendered a wonderful world to spend time in.”— Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six

A propulsive tale of ambition and romance, set in the publishing world of 1980’s New York and the timeless beaches of Cape Cod.

In the summer of 1987, 25-year-old Eve Rosen is an aspiring writer languishing in a low-level assistant job, unable to shake the shadow of growing up with her brilliant brother. With her professional ambitions floundering, Eve jumps at the chance to attend an early summer gathering at the Cape Cod home of famed New Yorker writer Henry Grey and his poet wife, Tillie. Dazzled by the guests and her burgeoning crush on the hosts’ artistic son, Eve lands a new job as Henry Grey’s research assistant and an invitation to Henry and Tillie’s exclusive and famed "Book Party"— where attendees dress as literary characters. But by the night of the party, Eve discovers uncomfortable truths about her summer entanglements and understands that the literary world she so desperately wanted to be a part of is not at all what it seems.

A coming-of-age story, written with a lyrical sense of place and a profound appreciation for the sustaining power of books, Karen Dukess's The Last Book Party shows what happens when youth and experience collide and what it takes to find your own voice.

Fiction Fiction - Literary

With a background in newspaper and magazine journalism, Karen Dukess spent eight years as a speechwriter on gender equality at the United Nations Development Programme. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and lives in Pelham, New York.