The Stark Beauty of Last Things

Author Celine Keating’s third novel, The Stark Beauty of Last Things, begins in early autumn in Montauk, New York–a community dependent on the ocean and its lush natural surroundings–as it awakens to the effects of an unpredictable climate. Keating writes in the opening pages, “the sun bakes the earth as in the height of summer… migrating birds and fish linger past their time and whales wash up on shore.” The writing in the description of the season is lyrical and pointedly ominous. We understand almost immediately that the climate’s instability is bringing unease and disruption to the collection of fisherman, tourism-facing business owners, and even the seasonal summer dwellers who call Montauk home. In the face of this, The Stark Beauty of Last Things sets about asking, is it possible to change course, and if so, how?

Outsider Clancy Frederics is an unlikely person to put everyone on the course to finding the answers. Orphaned and without any kind of family anchor, Clancy arrives in the Hamptons on the invitation of a friend to attend an art show fundraiser benefitting a documentary about seaside erosion. In conversation with one of the local artists, Clancy hears the name Montauk and is instantly reminded of a fleeting period in his childhood when he was taken under the wing of a Montauk policeman and treated with kindness. He is motivated to look up Otto Lansky after being out of touch for years, and their reunion sets off a series of events that will eventually bring the conflict between unchecked development and the needs of the land and its people to a head.

As delicately as Keating weaves climate issues and activism into the novel, it is her expert unfurling of the interior thoughts and motivations of these complex Montauk residents that brings the story to life. Amid the struggles between developers and environmentalists, dreamers and pragmatists, and the wealthy and the working class, we are presented with individuals who bring their own histories, joys, and sorrows to each decision they make. We are drawn into the stories of Julienne, the painter whose love for her lifelong home radiates from her work, as she sympathizes with the environmentalists fighting to preserve open space; Otto’s estranged daughter, Theresa, who keeps to herself on a spot threatened by coastal erosion while struggling to make peace with her past and take charge of her future; and Molly, in a new relationship with fisherman Billy, fully invested in making and keeping a home with him and his young brother in spite of the lure of a developer’s money.

However, it is Clancy who makes the bridge between the disparate groups as he negotiates an acceptable solution to all concerning the fate of a small parcel of land. The delicate balance struck by Clancy highlights the fragile but necessary compromises that must be made by all who wish to serve as stewards of the land, thus tying together an essentially human story with its larger, global climate concerns.

Celine Keating gives us a beautifully written and complexly woven story that both engages readers and makes them think long after they have turned the last page.