“Screenplays are written in the present tense, as if what you see is happening for the first time. That’s why what happened to me in Aspen is a movie; it’s always happening, again and again, for the first time. I will always see it as a movie.”
Genre: Fiction
Actual Rating: 4 stars
Spicy Meter: Very disturbing
Content Warnings: Describes (sort of) incest, infidelity, death, sickness, mental deterioration, dysfunctional families, having children out of wedlock in conservative families, and hiding your sexuality and gender identity. This is overall a very troubling and dark read, these content warnings don’t encompass that too well.
“The Last Chairlift” is a 889-paged novel, so it’s understandable that the blurb doesn’t really describe what it’s all about. But, essentially, throughout this book, we live the life of Adam Brewster, the bastard child of a prominent skier known as Little Ray, as he is, honestly, heavily traumatized by his mother and somewhat rescued by his stepfather.
It is also fair to note that when they talk about ghosts on the blurb, they’re literally talking about ghosts as in dead people, not as in people Adam hasn’t seen in a long time. Maybe keep that in mind when grabbing this book—it is a bit surrealistic and odd.
I am still not sure how I feel about this read, other than heavy, weighted down. Not necessarily in a bad way, just in a very real way. This book not only touched on a fictional or fantastical world, it takes from our history and inserts a group of characters that are living through it too.
Something very unique about “The Last Chairlift” is how some parts are told through screenplay. When Adam goes to Aspen in search of answers about his origins, this is all told through a script, which was hard to adjust to, but also kind of welcomed, as it broke the narrative for a while—gave you a break through a very long novel.
I found some of the things about this book to be extremely disturbing. Things like Adam’s fascination for his cousin Nora, how Little Ray kissed Adam, how the sweet angel of Adam’s step father (Elliot, the little snowshoer) was treated at times, and then bring in how some people are pointing out how some things are practically autobiographical. It makes me wonder where fiction and reality become one.
This book reminded me of one of my favorite reads last year, “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara, but I’m still not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, because I will never be reading that book again. It was just too heavy (and perhaps this book is too).
Overall, if you’ve read other John Irving books and you’re up to reading this chunk of a novel, then might as well grab it. It’s not bad, it just maybe didn’t have to be almost 900 pages long.
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ARC provided by NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada in exchange for an honest review.
andrea's galley 