The Last September

July 1, 2015
A moody murder mystery infused with love and grief-and a fascination with Emily Dickinson. "Because I am a student of literature, I will start my story on the day Charlie died. In other words, I'm beginning in the middle." This is Brett Mercier, named by her English-professor parents after Hemingway's Lady Brett Ashley and herself a scholar of American Renaissance poetry. She meets her future husband at college in Colorado through his brother Eli, a pre-med student, her good friend. After one unforgettable night of love and cross-country skiing, Charlie disappears. The next year, she loses Eli too, when he's sucked under by schizophrenia. By the time the brothers reappear in her life, Brett is in grad school, engaged to someone else. De Gramont's (Gossip of the Starlings, 2008, etc.) latest boasts lovely, understated writing, sharply drawn settings-Boulder, Amherst, and Cape Cod-and, once again, characters who are irresistibly attractive, flawed, and dangerous. "This wasn't a murder mystery," Brett announces to the reader late in the novel. It is a murder mystery, actually, as is any book that starts with a homicide and ends by revealing the culprit. But it is also an emotionally intense study of how a transcendent love becomes a fraying marriage, buckling under the weight of financial troubles, early parenthood, Brett's frustration at having no time to work on her research, and Charlie...just being Charlie. By the time crazy ol' Eli shows up for an unwanted visit, setting in motion the events of the horrible day, the couple and their baby are living in a ramshackle beach house borrowed from the brothers' dad. Eli is in the yard freaking out when Brett arrives and finds the body, then he runs. He must have done it, right? A fine literary whodunit from an accomplished storyteller.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 1, 2015
In measured, meditative prose, de Gramont, combines an intriguing murder mystery with a layered portrait of love and marriage. Brett, a PhD student in literature with a 15-month-old daughter, is in shock after learning that her husband, Charlie, has been murdered. The most obvious suspect is his brother, Eli, who suffers from bipolar disorder, frequently goes off his meds, and has disappeared from the Cape Cod home where Charlie's body was discovered. As the police search for him, Brett pores over her past, seeking the decisive moments that brought disaster to her door. Charlie's failed restaurant, his affair with its hostess, even the way Brett threw over a former fiance the minute Charlie expressed interest in her all come under scrutiny. At the heart of the novel, though, is de Gramont's poignant portrayal of Eli's mental illness, the burdens it places on family members, and the way Brett can so clearly picture him before the ravages of the illness took their toll. Set in Cape Cod amid the matte autumn sunlight and burnished eel grass, this is slow-paced but atmospheric reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 15, 2015

In her latest stunning novel, de Gramont (Gossip of the Starlings) wastes no time. Brett Mercier, a brilliant academic specializing in Emily Dickinson, is a young widow with a 15-month-old daughter. Her husband, Charlie Moss, has been murdered on Cape Cod. The likely suspect is Charlie's younger brother, Eli, who was Brett's best friend in college before he was all but lost to the ravages of schizophrenia. From Brett's love-at-first-sight teen crush on girl-magnet Charlie through the heartbreak of his years-long elusiveness to her brief engagement to safe, wealthy Ladd Williams, whose family is tied to that of the Moss brothers on the Cape, to Charlie's murder, the mystery unfolds with unexpected detours. The torture of unanswered questions resulting from violent death is on full powerful display, as are Brett's torn loyalties--to the terribly ill Eli, to the devoted fiance she spurned, to her irresistible, unfaithful late husband--that threaten her stability. VERDICT With an artist's eye and a poet's heart, de Gramont realizes a world of love, mystery, and the shattering sorrow of mental illness, deceit, hope, and lives cut short. Impossible to put down.--Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.