The Last Romantics

Don't let this title fool you. This book is not just about romantic love as the title implies, but rather it's about all kinds of love. Messy love. True love. Conditional love. Weak love. And most certainly, this book is about the failures of love...


In Tara Conklin's The Last Romantics, a middle class family is torn apart and then brought back together after tragedy and heartbreak. When the head of the household, Ellis Skinner, dies suddenly and tragically, wife and mother, Noni, goes into a long period of "absence". In the book, this is referred to as the "Pause." She literally is non-existent. She doesn't take care of her four children....ages 4 to 11! She doesn't cook, clean or do anything. She locks herself in her room for like two years.  The kids are basically left to fend for themselves. Daughter, Renee takes on a mother figure caring for her siblings, brother Joe assumes the role of "man of the house" and siblings Caroline and Fiona, and all the children really, struggle in different ways because of the Pause.

The book chronicles each of the siblings and the effects of Noni's withdrawal and subsequent emergence in their lives. Joe ends up "saving" his sisters in many ways, both literally and figuratively in this novel. But when Joe needs his sisters the most, they would be unable to rescue him. Another tragedy would prove to deeply affect this family again, even cause the siblings not to speak for five years.

Like many great books I've read, I've been thinking about this one long after I read the last page. I've been thinking about the ending too, and I wish it had ended differently.

What lessons can we learn from the Skinner family?  I think the ending of the book sums it up quite nicely. Conklin writes:

"I was wrong to tell you that this is a story about the failures of love. No, it is about real love, true love. Imperfect, wretched, weak love.  No fairy tales, no poetry.  It is about the negotiations we undertake with ourselves in the name of love. Every day we struggle to decide what to give away and what to keep but every day we make that calculation and we live with the results.  This is the true lesson: there is nothing romantic about love. Only the most naive believe it will save them. Only the hardiest of us will survive it."

If you're looking for a good book to read, I'd recommend this one, and for my thoughts on why love leads to heartbreak, read this post.