One Last Thing Before I Go by Jonathan Tropper – 324 pages
Book Blurb:
Silver has begun to accept that life isn’t going to turn out as he expected. The exwife he’s remained friends with is about to marry a terrific guy Silver can’t quite bring himself to hate. And his Princeton-bound teenage daughter has just confided in him that she’s pregnant—because he’s the one she cares least about letting down. As the wedding looms and the pregnancy sinks in, this broken family struggles, bonds, and wrestles with each member’s individual anxieties. Lives begin anew, change radically, or, in Silver’s case—as he discovers that he could die at any moment without an operation he refuses to have—may be about to end in an instant.
My Review: 4 stars
Jonathan Tropper does it again! He is so good at creating character driven novels and getting deep into their psyche. With raw wit he shares a sad story about Silver (we never learn why he doesn’t use his first name) and how his loneliness since his divorce has landed him at a worn down apartment building filled with other divorced men. These men have such a vast vacancy in their lives and we learn how they cope and in some cases, try and recover and move on. Denise, the ex wife was an insightful, important character who had happily moved on. Silver’s daughter Casey was a perfectly portrayed 18 year old and through her, we watch Silver become alive while in reality he’s literally dying. Fast, entertaining read.
Quotes I liked:
The dull, defeated expression that had become his default in recent years disappeared, and she’d seen, well, her Silver.”
– “She rolls onto her side to watch him sleep. His face loses something in slumber, and he looks unfamiliar to her, like a word repeated endlessly until its syllables disintegrate into meaningless sounds.”
– “We don’t stop loving people just because we hate them, but we don’t stop hating them either.”
– “But more often than not, Silve seems to get a pass just for being Silver. She chafes at the injustice of his having acquired favored-nation status simply by being an irresponsible asshole of a father…”
