The Last First Day

August 19, 2013
Glancing at a paragraph or a page of Brown's (The Rope Walk) torpid novel might give an impression of glinting pathos and well-rendered nostalgia, but, though well-written on a sentence-by-sentence level, it falls short as a whole. Ruth, preparing for the last first day of her husband's tenure as headmaster at a New England boarding school, looks back on their life together; their early marriage, their fights, her struggle to fit into her role as headmaster's wife. She reflects on their gradual aging and her resentment over their imminent ouster from the school. In between these reminiscences, the plot crawls forward: it take Ruth 50 pages to progress from dressing herself and readying the house for a party, to leaving the house, another 50 pages to get through the dinner and speech that will precede the party. When hints of tragedy and drama are introduced, they are too late or too overwhelmed to be anything but odd distractions. A later section in the book in which Ruth relates her terrible childhood and her youthful encounters with Peter is much more sequential and successful, but it is not enough to save this novel from the weight of its insistent poignancy.

September 1, 2013
The wife of a private school headmaster looks back at 50-plus years of marriage in this restrained yet emotionally powerful portrait of enduring love from Brown (The Rope Walk, 2007, etc.). Ruth's husband, Peter, now in his 70s, has dedicated his life, and hers, to Derry School, a Maine prep school for boys. As the novel opens, Ruth reflects on her life while preparing for the cocktail party she and Peter throw annually on the first evening of the new school year. After receiving his Ph.D. at Yale, Peter rejected seemingly more prestigious job offers because he appreciated Derry's stated mission of teaching indigent boys. Fifty years later, the school has begun marketing to wealthier families to survive, but Peter remains a gentle idealist. Ruth finds Peter's genuine goodness, his belief in God and his genial passivity both enviable and irksome since she remains filled with doubt and inner conflict. Raised by a single father who died in prison shortly after he was exposed as a murderer, Ruth has never found life easy, but she has experienced kindness and generosity, first from Peter's doctor father, who took Ruth in after her own father's arrest, and then from the Yale psychiatry professor and Holocaust survivor who became her closest friend and surrogate mother. Born into middle-class security, Peter has never lost his sense of optimism, not even after his mother's mental illness and the crisis in his romance with Ruth that separated the two young lovers for several years until they reunited as college seniors. They have never been apart since. On the evening of the party, Peter has a stroke. He survives but must retire. That Peter has been beloved by his students has always been obvious, but Ruth finally realizes that her life at the school and with Peter has been richer than she realized. A beautiful piece of writing: bittersweet with nostalgia, surprisingly sensual and sharply nuanced in its depiction of the strains and rewards that shape any long marriage.

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September 1, 2013
As this deeply moving novel opens, Ruth van Dusen is preparing for what will turn out to be her husband Peter's last first day. As headmaster of the Derry School for Boys, it is Peter's job to welcome students to the first day of the new school year. It will also be his last day, a long-dreaded one for the devoted couple, when illness will suddenly strike and their well-established lives will change forever. Brown, author of five novels including Lamb in Love (1999) and The Rope Walk (2007), has written a well-crafted, meaningful story of two people and the long, happy life they have shared. From their first fateful meeting, when an orphaned Ruth is taken in by the van Dusen family, to their final days in retirement, when failing health and flooding memories compete for their attention, Brown tells the story of Ruth and Peter with a keen observer's eye. Beautifully written, with deeply memorable characters, The Last First Day is a powerful examination of love across the years and a heartfelt story of the strength of unbreakable bonds.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

April 15, 2013

Ruth's husband, Peter, is about to retire from the boys school he has headed for decades, and now the childless couple must face "the last first day"--and all the days that follow.

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October 15, 2013

For 50 years, headmaster Peter Van Dusen and his wife, Ruth, have devoted their lives to the Derry School for boys in Maine. There has been recent growing rebellion against the school's original mission--to provide quality education for disadvantaged youth--and as Peter's health fails, younger staff members are nipping at his heels, hoping he will retire. Ruth, who has loved Peter since she was 12, feels the pressure on the two to leave Derry. In language that is atmospherically poetic, Brown moves back and forth through the decades, from the first worst day of Ruth's life, when she first sees Peter, through their love, interrupted by more tragedy and missed opportunities, until they are reunited by serendipity. VERDICT Recipient of a Discover Great New Writers Award for her first novel, Rose's Garden, Brown (The Rope Walk) has written a beautiful anatomy of a strong, flawed couple, bound by love and challenged by life. For those who appreciate a quiet examination of a lasting union. [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/13.]--Beth Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.