THE LAST OF THE CRAZY PEOPLE

by Timothy Findley ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1967

This is an unassertive, most affecting account of the world which closes in on Hooker Winslow during his eleventh summer, and all the sad, cumulatively shattering events which take place seem quite true. Perhaps because it's told in such a lowkeyed fashion; not a word is out of place. Hooker is pretty much on his own with his cat Little Bones and the occasional attention of Iris, their Negro maid; his mother, like her mother before her, is ""peculiar"" behind closed doors after the death of a baby; Nicholas, his father, ""sits with his back to everything""; his older brother has started to drink, and, no one quite realizes what shape he's in. He commits suicide. Sometimes Hooker thinks he's the ""last of the crazy people"" but his tragedy is not so much the family history of imbalance but the weight of living alone with impossible questions too long unanswered. Hooker also thinks nobody listens to him--or pays attention to him. Sometimes it is the fate of a book like this which would be too bad. The setting is, unexpectedly, Canada, and the writing, clear and clean, is close to the bone.

Pub Date: May 1, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Meredith

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION