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A Fan's Notes #3
Last Notes from Home
"Of his generation's metafictioneers, Fred Exley has created the richest and most American body of work .... LAST NOTES tells tales about corruption, confession, and the often terrible beauty of the bonds of love."- VILLAGE VOICEÌýFrederick Exley, the splenetic and prodigiously self-destructive narrator and protagonist of A FAN'S NOTES and PAGES FROM A COLD ISLAND, is alive, if not exactly well. In this exhilarating, scalding new novel, Ex recounts his Ìýdeath watch for his older brother, his imprisonment by a nightmarish Irishman, and his sexual enthrallment to a beautiful flight attendant whose lies are even more inventive than his own. Searching compulsively for love and inevitably betraying it, lashing out at the country in which he is perpetually an alien, Exley remains one of the most riveting characters- and mesmerizing writers - in contemporary American fiction."[Exley] can weave a number of seemingly unrelated incidents into a single, allusive narrative leading to an unexpected, usually prickly epiphany. His books seem like the loquacious meanderings of one of the more literary and entertainingly cynical, if often terrifyingly frank, guys one might meet in a neighborhood bar.... They reveal themselves as structurally complex, thoroughly imagined, consummate works of art." -BOSTON GLOBE
- GenresFictionLiteratureNovels
397 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1988
8 people are currently reading
237 people want to read
About the author
Frederick Exley
6Ìýbooks98ÌýfollowersFrederick "Fred" Exley was a critically lauded, if not bestselling, author. He was nominated for a National Book Award for A Fan's Notes, and received the William Faulkner Award for best first novel, as well as the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters
He was a guest lecturer at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1972 and won a Playboy Silver medal award in 1974 for best non-fiction piece for "Saint Gloria & The Troll," an excerpt from his book Pages From Cold Island.
His later work also earned him a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Harper-Saxton Fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
Exley died of a stroke at 62 in 1992.
He was a guest lecturer at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1972 and won a Playboy Silver medal award in 1974 for best non-fiction piece for "Saint Gloria & The Troll," an excerpt from his book Pages From Cold Island.
His later work also earned him a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Harper-Saxton Fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
Exley died of a stroke at 62 in 1992.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 9, 2016
For anyone who laments the early death of John Kennedy Toole, author of the cult-ish one-hit wonder Confederacy of Dunces , be careful for what you wish. Exley is a bit like Toole as his first novel, A Fan's Notes , was pretty much out of nowhere and absolutely crushed it (perhaps the greatest singularly American novel of the 20th century), but then he went on to write Notes From A Cold Island , and this book, which are somewhere near pointless and more pointless.
It is almost mindboggling how Exley could have produced A Fan's Notes and then a book like Last Notes From Home which reads like an unedited diary that doesn't quite tie anything together in to any serviceable plot. It's like he either knew he could never outdo A Fan's Notes so he stopped trying, or he just drank so much that he lost his literary edge.
There is absolutely no reason to read this book unless you want to see a what a Ferrari looks like after it crashes.
It is almost mindboggling how Exley could have produced A Fan's Notes and then a book like Last Notes From Home which reads like an unedited diary that doesn't quite tie anything together in to any serviceable plot. It's like he either knew he could never outdo A Fan's Notes so he stopped trying, or he just drank so much that he lost his literary edge.
There is absolutely no reason to read this book unless you want to see a what a Ferrari looks like after it crashes.
July 13, 2020
This is the first book of the Exley trifecta that i'm compelled to write a review about, because I feel this book's reception isn't congruent with it's quality, unlike his other two books: we all know the literary colossus that is A Fan's Notes, a book I consider nothing less than a masterpiece, a statement to which most critics would concur. Then we have Pages From a Cold Island, Exley's second effort, which is unanimously considered a worse book(not in small part due to Exley's cloying infatuation with the late Edmund Wilson, for which there are lengthy biographical dissertations sprinkled all throughout, which get, frankly, tiresome). But, Unlike the awkward and almost aimless Pages From a Cold Island(which still has its moments), Last Notes From Home, to me, was quite a good book, although it doesn't even come close to the heady heights of A Fan's Notes.
This book is notable because it's the most "fiction-y" of all of Exley's works, although still heavily autobiographical. For instance, there is a sequence in which our beloved Fred is being held captive by the delightfully demented Irishman O'Twoomey, who keeps him locked in a room, sans television, so Fred can quit lolligagging and get underway on his new novel, which ends up being the very one we're discussing here(very meta!) I found this part of the book as riotous as any part of A Fan's Notes, and that's largely because we have a renewed cast of zany characters to drive the action and receive Fred's always acerbic, sardonic, booze-fueled criticism of them.
This book also has a compelling female character, Robin Glenn, which is a first for Exley's books. Ms. Glenn is introduced to us as an airline stewardess whom Exley meets on his way to Hawaii to see his emaciated, cancer ridden brother(touted as the main plot point of the book, but the sections involving his brother, while wonderfully written, seem like mere side-stories) Exley and Robin Glenn become more involved throughout the book, a relationship that culminates in the final chapter, an awesome, dazzling section in which they are joined in holy matrimony on the Hawaii seaside. For Exley fans, this part might generate tears, for this is the end of Exley's literary rope, a final, monumental Note.
This book still has problems, the severity of most of which are entirely subjective, however. For instance, Exley very often appears to get distracted and meander off on some side-story, usually subtly enough that we don't even know it's happening until we find ourselves saying, "wait, what? what's this about Julia Child?" however, I should mention that most of these little anecdotes are forgivable, if not desirable, because of Exley's humor and prose. He could write about the process by which metamorphic rock is made, and still imbue it with a kind of entertaining profundity.
Another very similar problem is a lack of continuity, specifically about who Exley is speaking to in his writing. At some points he's talking to us, the reader, other sections seem to be addressed-in a confessional tone-to his therapist, and still other sections are almost nonsensical addresses to a "Big Jim" from, I believe, Gunsmoke. It's quite difficult to keep track of who Exley's talking to, or about, but this isn't a book to be read and annotated methodically. This is a book that you pick up, flip to a random page, and just try to keep up, which is its own reward.
This book is notable because it's the most "fiction-y" of all of Exley's works, although still heavily autobiographical. For instance, there is a sequence in which our beloved Fred is being held captive by the delightfully demented Irishman O'Twoomey, who keeps him locked in a room, sans television, so Fred can quit lolligagging and get underway on his new novel, which ends up being the very one we're discussing here(very meta!) I found this part of the book as riotous as any part of A Fan's Notes, and that's largely because we have a renewed cast of zany characters to drive the action and receive Fred's always acerbic, sardonic, booze-fueled criticism of them.
This book also has a compelling female character, Robin Glenn, which is a first for Exley's books. Ms. Glenn is introduced to us as an airline stewardess whom Exley meets on his way to Hawaii to see his emaciated, cancer ridden brother(touted as the main plot point of the book, but the sections involving his brother, while wonderfully written, seem like mere side-stories) Exley and Robin Glenn become more involved throughout the book, a relationship that culminates in the final chapter, an awesome, dazzling section in which they are joined in holy matrimony on the Hawaii seaside. For Exley fans, this part might generate tears, for this is the end of Exley's literary rope, a final, monumental Note.
This book still has problems, the severity of most of which are entirely subjective, however. For instance, Exley very often appears to get distracted and meander off on some side-story, usually subtly enough that we don't even know it's happening until we find ourselves saying, "wait, what? what's this about Julia Child?" however, I should mention that most of these little anecdotes are forgivable, if not desirable, because of Exley's humor and prose. He could write about the process by which metamorphic rock is made, and still imbue it with a kind of entertaining profundity.
Another very similar problem is a lack of continuity, specifically about who Exley is speaking to in his writing. At some points he's talking to us, the reader, other sections seem to be addressed-in a confessional tone-to his therapist, and still other sections are almost nonsensical addresses to a "Big Jim" from, I believe, Gunsmoke. It's quite difficult to keep track of who Exley's talking to, or about, but this isn't a book to be read and annotated methodically. This is a book that you pick up, flip to a random page, and just try to keep up, which is its own reward.
October 23, 2013
Having finished the trilogy of Exley's novels first in high school--where, I think, Exley's indulgences in oral sex, cultural masculinity, substance abuse, et cetera, can seem to a teenager like a very raw reading of the psyche--I'm impressed overall how well the final book holds up, and though I understand that structurally it's not quite as perfect or as thematically coherent as the truly great /A Fan's Notes/, /Last Notes From Home/ is a wonderful, original book full of rhetorical triumph and some genuine, quite scary emotion. To repeat the same in a much shorter sentence, I love this book. Unwieldy and odd, there is a beauty to the text's misshapenness, and I'm nothing less than grateful for it. I realize that this isn't quite a review so much as a gush, but sometimes a reader gushes. I can't guarantee that everyone, or even the majority, of readers will have my reaction to Exley's book, but if you've read /A Fan's Notes/ and want more, I would urge you to finish out the trilogy. It can be a sad experience--/Pages From a Cold Island/ is rather an unfortunate duck--but Exley still manages to be capable of some truly transcendent writing, imbued with a level of feeling that I imagine a great many other writers would find embarrassing. Gushing is what Exley does, and to gush back seems only appropriate. I can't explain it, but there were never so many tears in my eyes as there were when I finally finished this book, reading by closet light at three AM on a school night some forever increasing number of years ago.
January 7, 2008
I remembered this as a much worse book than it is. It comes in ahead of Pages, I think now, and second to Fan's. O'Twoomey is the second coming of Mr. Blue and all those wacky characters from Fan's Notes. Robin Glenn is a much better female character, indicating maybe he has learned something about a certain kind of woman, i.e., who just can't help making stuff up (I knew someone just like this in college and I still think about her sometimes, quite a lot). This is a careful book, well structured, with an appearance of chaos and sheets flying madly all around the room which Exley uses to great effect. Language is still, as ever, his friend and seems to rescue him somehow whenever he is so personal and local in his interest that you are tempted to say: "so the fuck what?" This is also more like real fiction than any of his other writings.
November 10, 2009
I'm so sorry, Fred, but I could barely make it through this baby.
Loved "A Fan's Notes." Found this book full of wonderful bits, but far too overwritten and sprawling to command my attention for long periods of time.
Still, the wonderful bits are hilariously, depressingly wonderful, and I kept picking it back up just to find another brilliant, meandering side story.
Loved "A Fan's Notes." Found this book full of wonderful bits, but far too overwritten and sprawling to command my attention for long periods of time.
Still, the wonderful bits are hilariously, depressingly wonderful, and I kept picking it back up just to find another brilliant, meandering side story.
April 25, 2013
Highly recommended. New York Giants fan Exley writes this memoir of his love if sport, women and his madness. A bright writer, those who are well read wil appreciate his allusion to classic literature and art. Interesting and recommended!
May 1, 2025
The third, and last, "novel" of Exley's is by far the weakest. The everything but the kitchen sink approach really doesn't work. It has moments, but overall it does not hold together. I think if he had stuck to the original theme (the death of his brother), it would have come out better. As it is, the brother is barely mentioned.
On the other hand, as a portrait of a man sunk in the depths of alcoholism, it's incredibly honest.
On the other hand, as a portrait of a man sunk in the depths of alcoholism, it's incredibly honest.
June 22, 2017
Pretty bad
February 16, 2020
A bit of a slog, but there are some anecdotes that seem among the best of auto-fiction. Don't start with this, if it is your first Exley, though. You'll likely not want to read A Fan's Notes, and that would be a mistake.
December 21, 2020
Pas du tout fan de l'écriture, l'auteur se regarde le nombril dans un style pas franchement passionnant...
April 29, 2020
This is the tenth book in a series that I am calling “quarantine life.� With all of our public libraries closed due to the coronavirus, I have turned to my bookshelves and the unread books that await me there.
I knew that this book was not well regarded, but I thought that I might enjoy it at some level. And I did until about halfway when the book becomes a sloppy mess of typical Exley memoirs and a totally fictional situation where he is held captive by gangsters. The memoirs stopped being interesting and lapsed into the innumerable sexual conquests of Exley. Gone was the lunatic humor of his other work or the deep pathos of his failed life..... this really became dreck in the end.
I’m still a fan, Ex, but not of this book.
I knew that this book was not well regarded, but I thought that I might enjoy it at some level. And I did until about halfway when the book becomes a sloppy mess of typical Exley memoirs and a totally fictional situation where he is held captive by gangsters. The memoirs stopped being interesting and lapsed into the innumerable sexual conquests of Exley. Gone was the lunatic humor of his other work or the deep pathos of his failed life..... this really became dreck in the end.
I’m still a fan, Ex, but not of this book.
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August 17, 2023not as good as A Fan’s Notes but better than Pages from a Cold Island if only because it has some sort of narrative throughline beyond digressions on the culture and records of having sex with a variety of undergrads (Exley is still recounting many exploits here but it’s slightly less cocksure). still overall lacking the thematic cohesion of the first in the trilogy and you really don’t gain anything by reading these second two, but it’s fun to remember a time when fiction was allowed to just be this - now all autofiction is new york city losers fucking and sucking their way to oblivion while tiktok plays in the background -, at least back then it was marginally more erudite. still, its time has passed and that’s probably a good thing
February 5, 2008
If you are interested in sentences constructed into spirals that twist and turn, nearly breaking as the curve back round over themselves--like dogs chasing tails in the kitchens of grandmothers you only half remember and only half-fondly--this writer, a brilliant man who has, oddly (for me), lived in the same little Iowa and Florida towns I have, is your man.
June 24, 2014
(2.2/5.0) Digressive and dated with glints of stunningly sad wisdom. Probably really offensive to indigenous Hawaiians.
March 9, 2007
Blech! Maybe booze isn't such a good thing in the long run.
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