SOURCE: Craig, Amanda. “A Jane for Our Age.” New Statesman 127, no. 4386 (22 May 1998): 56-7.

In the following review, Craig argues that The Last Resort is a “masterpiece,” contending that Lurie writes with great wit and attention to detail.

The Last Resort refers to both a location and an action. Wilkie Walker, an eminent naturalist, has come to Key West, an exotic seaside resort at the far end of Florida, to commit suicide. His reason for doing so is that he suspects he has colonic cancer, and does not wish his wife Jenny to know he is a dying man.

If this were Tolstoy or Mann, we would be pretty sure of the outcome: the doomed hero, after much private suffering, would walk into the sea and drown. That, in the male canon, is what literature is supposed to be about. This, however, is Alison Lurie, who never confuses the...