The Last Word (Jenny Chantry & Mike McKay, Hardie Grant, $22.95 pb, ISBN 1740662784, April) **

Decides to write review in style of novel just read. Suggests to reader that if this is not to taste, avoid book. Gives up after three sentences as lack of pronouns and definite articles begins to grate. This style of writing can be a really cute, fun and interesting narrative device. However, maintain it—with no other style for contrast—over nearly 300 pages and you risk having a recipe for intense reader aggravation. The premise of The Last Word is terrific. A couple have just retired and she keeps a daily journal of their experiences, mapping his difficult transition from man of finance to man of retirement. It is a portrait of an upper/middle-class Melbourne experience. The couple lives in a CBD empty-nester apartment and holiday somewhere that sounds suspiciously like Portsea. The novel chronicles an experience that I’m sure is familiar to many of the middle-class women who frequent writers’ festivals and do most of the fiction buying in this country. I can see every reason why this would have looked like a solid publishing proposition with a distinct (and large and relatively wealthy) target market. But I imagine many readers could have trouble getting through the relentless bounce of the writing style.

Eliza Metcalfe is AB&P’s assistant editor

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2005, Thorpe-Bowker