A stripper mom and her unwatched kid. A little uncomfortable suspense, but overall a pretty good read. Enjoyed House of Sand and Fog quite a bit more. ( )

I found this similar to House of Sand and Fog in the way the alternating, tense chapters provided multiple viewponts. Several characters depict the events just before 9/11 and almost all of the characters make bad decisions. The characters include: April, a beautiful stripper who had to bring her 3 year old daughter, Franny ,to work one day. Also Bassam who is a practicing pilot whose ultimate mission may by the Twin Towers, Jean who loves to babysit Franny is she is not suffering from an anxiety attacke. ---and AJ, a rejected dad and husband ..who gets his wrist broken by the strip club bouncer for putting his hands on one of the girls. The plot is taken up by the missing daughter and the convoluted plan that AJ undertakes, but the sub plot of Bassam and his wavering between enjoying the flesh of the western world or submiting to the jihad that will help to punish these infidels is the most interesting. Dumas writes that he spend a lot of time researching this book and it was interesting to know that some of the terrorist did in fact enjoy these pleasures of the flesh on the eve of thier religious mission. All in all I enjoyed this very plot driven novel. In reading about the book, I realized that Dumas was born on Sept 11 and have to wonder if having this event mar his birthday created some kind of interest in writing about these last days. ( )

It was a difficult book for me to finish... It was hard to engage with the characters, as none of them are quite likable. They're such disappointing people. Perhaps Dubus was trying to keep them true to life, but I found them depressing.

Having said that, the writing is wonderful, and it's tough to find fault with a book that quotes Eliot. ( )

Boy, I sure wanted to like this novel, but it ended up being so flat. I'm not sure if the characters just never resonated with me or I did not care for the subject matter, but I could not care one iota what happened to ANY of these people (and they seemed absurdly cliche, especially the oh-so conflicted stripper mom, hasn't that been done before, and before, and before?). I kept on reading hoping it would get better, but it really just ... did not. The writing is fine, what kept me engaged probably, but this talented author needs better vehicles for his skills. It's amazing that jihad, terrorism/911 and a strip club in South Florida could be boring, but it all sure was. I think if even one of the characters was likeable, it would have helped. The predictable "wrap up" at the ending was just rather goofy and tacked on. Anyway, just "blah" ... I don't recommend this one, to anyone, for any reason. ( )

I hadn't read this author before and when I was browsing some comments on this book on Amazon, it looked like most people enjoyed this but consider The House of Sand and Fog a better book. I first heard of this after Stephen King's glowing review in EW. It's an engrossing story about an exotic dancer named April who brings her 3-year-old daughter Franny to work one night when her regular babysitter is hospitalized. April had no other backup babysitters (I know how that feels). Two of the other main characters are patrons of the Puma club where April works. One is a Muslim man named Bassam, the other is a down-on-his-luck construction worker named AJ. The tension mounts because you just know something bad is going to happen but you're not sure exactly what and then when it does, you've no idea how it'll play out. I read this book very quickly. It is perhaps a bit longer than it needs to be -- sometimes there's just too much description that doesn't really seem necessary. The two main male characters seem to be more fleshed out than April. But that said, it was a good story. I may check out a reading that the author will be giving later this month at a local bookstore. Maybe I'll get my book signed. ( )

A dark view of humanity through the eyes of a terrorist preparing to blow up the twin towers, a young stripper and her 3 year old and a young father who has lost his rights to visit his son because of domestic violence. Well written but very dark. Not as engaging or enthralling as House of Sand and Fog. ( )

Started out very good, I could hardly put it down. The last 1/4 just drug on and on however. I liked the main characters (April, Jean, AJ, Franny) but some of the characters (Bassam, Lonnie) were kind of boring. Even though Bassam was an intergral part of the story (perhaps even the MOST integral part) I just felt nothing for him. ( )

I finished this book but I was struggling with it at the end. I wanted it to finish as I hated the creeping depression I felt most of the way through it. It was pretty seedy and sleazy in many parts too.
It was also difficult because I could not find empathy for any of the characters even though I could see that the author was trying to do so. I particularly had trouble with Bassam & the other hijackers. I wonder if it was because in hindsight of the horrific event, no human being would easily work past that to see those people responsible independently of what they did.
On a positive note, he is a gifted writer and, although minute in their detail, his descriptions are very vivid and insightful. And I must admit it was a powerful observation into how painful and dark some people's lives are making me thankful for all that I have. This novel is very hard to forget as a result.

One night in late summer 2001 told through the eyes of stripper (April), AJ (a patron who was ejected from the strip club), one of the 9/11 terrorists, Asam and Jean, April's landlady and babysitter, who was admitted to the hospital forcing April to bring her 3 year old to work with her. The child is unattended and crying at the back door of the club when AJ sees her and takes her, thinking he is saving her. April entertains Assam, clinching her connection to 9/11. Pretty well written but too long for what was needed and clearly not up to the level of "House of Sand and Fog." ( )

This book wasn't as good as "House of Sand And Fog" in my opinion but it kept you interested.....just wasn't a page turner. ( )

Considering the other reviews from fans of House of Sand & Fog, it appears the consensus here is that Dubus has produced a C effort at best, and disappointed most of us who enjoyed the A-game evident in his debut novel. Sand & Fog presented us with the moral dilemmas and disastrously bad judgments made by two tragically flawed characters, shifting our empathies for them and anger with them back and forth throughout the narrative. The conclusion was stunning, unexpected, and hauntingly sad. None of these elements are present in Garden of Last Days. After 200 pages, I found no connection to or interest in their lives or the obvious conclusion towards which Dubus is trudging along. There is no dramatic tension in this concept- the last days of a 9/11 terrorist and the lives of those who buzzed around him in their pathetic little routines, working at or partronizing a Florida strip club. It was a mistake to buy this book on blind faith, because it's impossible to finish with so many other fine works on my reading list.

The strength of this book is also its weakness. The story centers on the days prior to 9-11 and the exploits of one of the soon-to-be infamous hijackers. Bassam is torn between the temptations of the life to be had in this society he detests and that he considers evil, and his devotion to Islam and the great honor that has been bestowed upon him (amongst other things). We see the world through his eyes and it is an enlightening perspective at first.

He winds up at a strip club in Florida and there he spends thousands of dollars on a stripper named Spring, drinking and smoking the whole time. His torment is almost unbearable at times, and you learn much about the terminology the jihadist use to refer to non-believers along with the anger toward our infiltration of their holy land and our way of life in general.

The perspective starts to wear thin toward the end of the book as the passages in which Bassam confronts his doubts grow longer and more repetitive. There are other major characters and their story lines are engaging and intertwined with Bassam's but you finish the book thinking mostly of him and wonder what use everyone else was. As such, I thought the book dragged on a little long. ( )

A book about people sinking down to the point of catharsis. Some recover, some muddle through, some sink even deeper. A sad book, with little hope on display. ( )

Excellent clash of cultures novel combined with what if the last days before 9-11 could be seen through the terrorist's eyes? Fascinating story in which a young woman forced to work as a stripper to support her young daughter crosses paths with an Arab man entranced by the easy morals of our culture and a man pushed to the brink by a failed marriage. ( )

Following on the heel of House and Sand and Fog, this book just didn't measure up. Some interesting moments, but disappointing overall. Stephen King... what were you smoking when you said it was the best book you read all winter? I'm guessing it must have been the only book you read. All of the various storylines were predictable as were the characters. Could have, should have, would have read something else... ( )

From dancing girls to what it means to be a responsible parent. A very good read. ( )

I'm a fast reader, so an audiobook is more of a time commitment than most books get from me, including most books I like. I did not like this book. I don't know why I listened to all of it, but I felt compelled, for some reason; if I were reading it, I would've done the same, so that's no different. But an audiobook is interminable in a special way.

Why are Dubus' characters always at such a crisis point, as in House of Sand and Fog? For some reason, it really bugs me. And the internal dialogue of the terrorist didn't seem that genuine to me--nor did that of the little girl. This may have been exacerbated by the guy reading the book. I think it's hard to do either of those well, however.

I'll just say that I couldn't wait for 9/11 so that at least one of the annoying characters would be gone; unfortunately, that happens way at the end of the book, and there isn't much aftermath. ( )

This is a solid. well-written novel! ( )

Although I read this book in a matter of 24 hours, I was somewhat dissappointed. It was a compelling read to be sure, and the characters internal struggles with their past and their current demons bring humanity to those that it is often easy to pass judgement on. But I think that by cutting 100 pages or so the author could have been just as effective. ( )

On the Gulf Coast of Florida, the lives of several people come together in a "Gentlemen's Club." April, aka Spring, a single mother who is "dancing" at the club. Her 3-year-old daughter, Frannie, there only because her elderly babysitter has had a panic attack and is in the hospital for heart tests. AJ, an angry young man recently separated from his wife and young son and kept away by a restraining order. Bassam, aka "Mike," a young Muslim man, knowing he is on his way to meet Allah.

"Mike" hires Spring for a private dance in the Champaign Room. Believing Frannie to be sleeping and under supervision, Spring spends two hours taking off her clothes, then talking to Mike, answering his questions, then letting him tough her Cesarean scar. She ends the two hours thousands of dollars ahead - but her daughter is gone.

AJ has found Frannie. She woke up and went looking for her mother. AJ puts Frannie in his car and takes her way, thinking through his alcoholic haze that he is protecting a neglected child.

"Mike" leaves the club that night to meet his compatriots; together, they make their way to Boston, to an American Airlines flight that will take them to Allah and change our world.

The Garden of Last Days examines the morality of April / Spring. She is judged by everyone around her for her profession. Both her daughter’s babysitter and her daughter’s abductor decide that her profession makes her a bad mother. She is fired from her job because she is a single mother. The legal system takes her daughter away, assuming that she is a bad mother because she is a stripper. Even the man who will, only days later, be one of those who forces an American Airlines flight into one of the World Trade Center Towers tells her she is going to burn for her lifestyle. April is required to work harder than other mothers to demonstrate that she is not immoral; she is simply trying to make the money she needs to take care of herself and her daughter.

A fast-paced novel that has the feel of a thriller but is more the poignant examination of the life of a young mother as the world passes into the days post-9/11. ( )

My first read of a Dubus book. An interesting view of making one's way through life from the perspective of a variety of people connected directly or indirectly with a "gentlemen's club." The personal struggles are outlined through internal reflections of the characters, with significant past experiences remembered and current ones evaluated through those filters. It is not a book filled with action. It is a book of self reflection, defintion and re-definition of self by those we meet. No one's path has been straight. No one's path has been easy. In the end, the book seems a tad too long, with many of the self reflections a tad too repetitive. The last few pages were not momentous (despite the powerfully infamous event which marks the book's transition). Quiet acknowledgement of new life decisions, growth (insha'allah), and survival. A good, but not great book. ( )

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2008/...

Review: Andre Dubus' new novel set in a strip club on the eve of 9/11

By Jenny Shank For the Camera
Friday, June 20, 2008

As Andre Dubus III's new novel, "The Garden of Last Days," opens, April Connors is speeding to work with her 3-year-old daughter, Franny, in tow because her landlord and regular baby-sitter is in the hospital with heart-attack-like symptoms. At the Puma Club for Men, where April works as a stripper, there's "no calling in sick." April, who dances as "Spring," is so late for her first performance at the club that she has to leave Franny under the care of the unreliable "house mother" in a seedy room with nude-photo covered walls while she rushes out, wearing her regular underwear on stage.

Next we meet Bassam al-Jizani, a 26-year-old Saudi who is filled with guilt and anger as he drinks at the Puma Club; we soon learn that he is among the men planning to hijack airplanes and attack the World Trade Center in less than a week. Although al-Jizani is fictionalized, his character is based on the fact that some of the terrorists patronized a Florida strip club shortly before the attack.

Finally, there's AJ Carey, a construction worker who comes to the club to nurture his fantasies about one stripper and take his mind off his separation from his young son and his wife, who took out a restraining order against him after he hit her.

These elements quickly develop into a suspenseful plot that kept me up way too late at night as I tore through the pages to find out what would happen. As he demonstrated in his 1999 bestseller and National Book Award finalist, "House of Sand and Fog," Dubus -- who signs his new book Monday at the Boulder Book Store -- has a knack for building elemental themes and clashing moral codes into intense dramas. In "House of Sand and Fog" Dubus placed one piece of real estate at the center of a zero sum contest between a woman's quest for stability and an immigrant's desire for dignity.

In "The Garden of Last Days," Dubus pits an undereducated single mother's choice to become a stripper in order to make a good living and the consequences of that decision against the actions and judgments of Muslim fundamentalist al-Jizani as well as those of other Americans; al-Jizani isn't the only character who thinks of Spring as a "whore."

Al-Jizani pays for two hours alone with Spring in the "Champagne room" as AJ finds the distraught Franny alone in the back of the club and decides to help her in his own peculiar way. Through this intense drama, Dubus raises provocative questions about what makes a good parent and sets up a clash of cultures, values and ideas that fuels more than 500 tension-filled pages.

In this third-person narrative, Dubus plunges into the consciousnesses of half-a-dozen characters, allowing the reader the chance to become sequentially convinced by their particular thought processes and life stories. Of course, it's impossible to evoke sympathy for one of the 9/11 hijackers, but Dubus makes Al-Jizani not a monster but a human, if a loathsome one -- a virgin with a dead, beloved brother, conflicting feelings about Americans, parents who don't approve of his jihad mission and a streak of rage strong enough to bring down buildings.

Dubus sinks so far inside the head of occasional wife-beater AJ that he manages the trick of making the reader understand the perverse, internal logic behind why AJ hit his placid wife. Every person has a justification for their actions, no matter how abhorrent, and Dubus, better than most writers, takes us deep inside these inner monologues.

Paced like a thriller but written with the care, psychological depth and evocative details of literary fiction, "The Garden of Last Days" is a thoroughly transporting read. It has enough meat to feed a summerlong reflective reading, but most readers probably won't be able to resist gobbling it down immediately.

Jenny Shank also writes about books for NewWest.Net/Books. She lives in Boulder. ( )

As have so many before him, Dubus is in the clubhouse with his 911 novel. This was a huge disappointment for me. I never read The House of Sand and Fog, but did see the movie. Can I say that the movie was probably faithful to Dubus’ novel without having read it? Well, of course, I can - though it may not be exactly fair. But I sensed the same feeling of overwritten melodrama here as I felt while watching the movie. Garden seemed bloated and ponderous, a huge amount of time spent on the motivations of a stripper. A huge amount of time spent living inside the mind of a jihadist. And I’ve seen it done much better. McEwan’s Saturday for instance. DeLillo’s Falling Man. Even Updike on the jihadist in The Terrorist.

And yet, for all that, the obvious attempt to probe and dig, the length, the laborious buildup…it seemed to lack much insight beyond tedious and standard cliche’s. Surprising. I haven’t read any reviews of this, but I must be out in left field here. But it just didn’t do it for me. Oddly enough, after the attack, the denouement was rather well written. Suddenly I was connecting with the remaining core characters. As if Dubus, relieved of the burden to make sense of it all, finally was making some human sense. But 50-75 pages out of 530 s0me odd pages does not a recommendation make - nor a memorable reading experience. ( )