Review: The Last of the Stanfields

The Last of the Stanfields by Marc Levy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Last of the Stanfields just wasn’t, for me, an enjoyable read. In fact, I usually inhale a book like I’m gasping for breath (quickly and with great fervor), but this took me two full days of starting and stopping. I even contemplating shelving it before I’d hit the 50% mark. In the end, I slogged through and was left tired and honestly glad to have finished.

The premise is that of two strangers, Eleanor-Rigby Donovan and George-Harrison Collins, receiving nearly identical letters, the contents of which call into question everything they think they know about their mothers. The anonymous writer of these letters orchestrates a blind meeting for the two in Baltimore, as Eleanor-Rigby travels from England and George-Harrison from Canada. Together they embark upon a mission to uncover the truth behind a specific accusation leveled in the strange letters—that both of their mothers were involved in a significant crime.

The book is structured primarily as a first person narrative from Eleanor-Rigby’s POV. With that said, alternating chapters are told in third person. The reader travels from Baltimore, Maryland in the 1980s to war-torn France in the 40s, then to England, Canada and the US in 2016. It’s a dizzying journey that made me want to grab the author by the shoulders and scream “FOR GOD’S SAKE STOP!” It was just overwhelming, disjointed and frenetic.

Add to the structural chaos the fact that there were just too many extraneous and unnecessary plot threads, characters and details. The reader learns about Eleanor-Rigby’s family through painful specifics that lent nothing to the story. Her father loves his car, her brother is on the spectrum and works in a library, her sister has a boyfriend who owns a pub, and on, and on, and on. The author’s attention to the trivial carries through each chapter. It’s as if he is trying too hard to infuse an air of authenticity to the work, when instead the overwhelming minutiae serves only to suffocate the story. Mark Twain once said, “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don't mean utterly, but kill most of them--then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.” I believe the same holds true for intricacies offered in isolation. Twain would have hated this piece.

In the end, I wasn’t sure exactly who the target audience was here. History buffs are plied with chapters that skip through France on the heels of an American who joins forces with the French Resistance circa 1944. Romance readers are served a secondary love story. Those who enjoy the mystery genre are presented with a puzzle that is challenging. For me, this scatter-shot approach was simply disconcerting. Sometimes there is wisdom in choosing depth over breadth.

If you love history and don’t mind tangential forays and painfully detailed accounts of events, you may enjoy this. Three stars for the primary plot and the addition of an interesting twist. Just not my cup of tea.

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