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The Last of Her Kind

3.61 of 5 stars 3.61 · rating details · 1,029 ratings · 195 reviews

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the YearA Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the YearAnn Drayton and Georgette George meet as freshmen roommates at Barnard College in 1968. Ann, who comes from a wealthy New England family, is brilliant and idealistic. Georgette, who comes from a bleak town in upstate New York, is mystified by Ann's romanticization of the underpr...more

Paperback, 400 pages

Published December 12th 2006 by Picador (first published December 27th 2005)

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May 29, 2008 Silvia rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone interested in social justice

Shelves: fiction-other

This book really spoke deeply to me through the character of Ann. The first question it raised was: How can someone from an affluent background be a social justice activist? The book revealed all the contradictions inherent in this question. Ann was so offensive at times, especially at the beginning (e.g., wanting a room mate as different from her as possible and being disappointed that George wasn't Black). Also, she wished she had lived George's life, not realizing that if she actually had, sh...more

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Feb 25, 2008 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have to admit that this book is full of things I love: seven sister colleges, New York City, counterculture (and its backlash), the social movements of the 60s and how they evolved in the 70s, unhealthy female friendships.

While there was a romance that I felt was a misstep, I thought that the author made such interesting choices in the way she chose to structure and reveal her story that I was won over in the end. Utterly moved, I became way too involved with this story.

In a lot of ways, Georg...more

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Sep 18, 2007 Karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to read this book, but that shouldn't be misconstrued as negative criticism. I liked this book quite a lot, enough to give a copy to my mother for her birthday. (She didn't like it as much as I did, and this annoys me more than it should*.) Though I normally blow through a book, I took my time with this novel. I wanted to think about the things the main character experienced, especially the disintegration of her friendship with her unusual college roommate,Ann, and her ina...more It took me a long time to read this book, but that shouldn't be misconstrued as negative criticism. I liked this book quite a lot, enough to give a copy to my mother for her birthday. (She didn't like it as much as I did, and this annoys me more than it should*.) Though I normally blow through a book, I took my time with this novel. I wanted to think about the things the main character experienced, especially the disintegration of her friendship with her unusual college roommate,Ann, and her inability to forget Ann. (This relationship forms the major plot of the book.) I found that I liked spending time in the world of this novel, even if--often--the details of that world were difficult, heartbreaking or depressing for the main character.

Characters make this novel. That and the author's ability to evoke the era of the 60s. (Actually I wasn't alive back then, so I am not sure if it's authentic, but it sure *felt* authentic.) I could see, and understand thanks to Nunez, how some of the things taken for granted as normal in the 60s came to be viewed as absolutely bizarre only a few years later. I also learned the term "balling" which I will now try to work into all of my low-brow conversations. On a more serious note, Nunez shows her reader a world of immense idealism coupled with sometimes shocking selfishness. How does altruism become selfishness? Look to the character of Ann/Dooley to find out. Her idealism becomes mania. Her unbending principles really ruin her life, and those of the people who love her most. And yet Ann never lets go her ironclad idealism and the price it demands. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I found it absolutely horrifying. And I couldn't stop reading.

This was a wonderful read, and my mother clearly knows nothing!

*It should be noted that my mother *did* live through the sixites. I think this book may have reminded her of some of the people/ideas/things she didn't like so she was obviously too biased. Right? Right! And on that note, there was a great quote towards the end of the book, something along the lines of, "Parents will do anything for their children, and their children will step right over their parents' bodies and walk on" or something like that. I've pretty much mangled that. Go read it yourself!

(less)

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Aug 05, 2011 Wendy Kobylarz added it

Shelves: good-riddance

Somehow this book manages to be very readable yet horrible. The storyline does not match up with the blurb; only peripheral characters are interesting and sympathetic; the whole thing was like like this character Georgette's journal - except that Georgette is the kind of shallow person that I run far from. There is no depth to this character. I can't help but think that in the tangent where Georgette talks about her second husband, a critic, it's like the author is daring the audience to critici...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Melinda Seyler rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Melinda by: newleaph@gmail.com

The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez

I'm not quite sure what I think of this book. It's well written.
It's the story of the lifelong relationship between the first person
"author" and her college roommate. They are my contemporaries, growing
up and starting college in the late 60s. They are very different
people; the "author" being from an abusive, not well off, rural back
ground and her roommate being from a very wealthy, loving family. The
roommate hates her parents, her wealth, her entitlement, her...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Agnes Benis rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is an astounding book about two friends coming of age in the 60s and 70s with all the turbulence of those times. Ann is a wealthy only child of privilege who requests a roommate from the opposite economic situation. Georgette (George) is a scholarship student from upstate New York. She is totally mystified on why Ann rejects her family and life. They become close friends, but the friendship is ruptured with a nasty argument where George slaps Ann's face. They have no contact and then Ann is...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Ewurama rated it 3 of 5 stars

I first heard about this book in Katha Politt’s opinion piece (on the lack of Franzen-level hysteria accorded women writers) and ran out to get it. It was a bonus that Nunez is a woman of color, as I’ve decided to be more pointed in my pursuit of new and un- or under-hyped female writers and writers of color so as not miss out on the full spectrum of good reading that is available. I avoided reading the full length of jacket copy, as I didn’t want to be robbed of uncovering the story as I read....more

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Nov 03, 2011 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, realistic-fiction

I was bracing myself for this novel to either entirely disappoint or completely wow me. I was drawn in by the late-sixties setting and stayed for the characters. The two main ones(Georgette, a smart, nervous girl from a poor community in the next-door-to-Canada part of New York State, the first one in her family to attend college, she also serves as the narrator; and Ann, the rich kid who wants to be poor, heavily involved in student activism and helping others) could have easily been written as...more

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Dec 08, 2010 Jaylia3 rated it 4 of 5 stars

What does it mean to live completely and uncompromisingly by your principles? This novel, a compelling dual portrait of two college roommates who meet as freshman in 1968, captures the personal dilemmas, group obsessions and cultural divides of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Coming from a rough, impoverished childhood, Georgette George lives instinctively by the motto, “Don’t let the pack know you’re wounded” so she is flummoxed by her brilliant, privileged, idealistic roommate who wants to t...more

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Apr 11, 2010 Annie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

I couldn't put this book down but I didn't like where the story went as well as some of the material of the book. Georgette George, the first in her family to go to college, is escaping her dead-end town and strange family. Her roommate is Ann Drayton, a fiercely idealistic woman who despises the upper-class society she was raised in and throws herself into the revolutionary times of the 1960's. She protests against Vietnam and is all about changing "the system." Eventually, Ann and Georgette pa...more

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Nov 15, 2009 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

I also finished reading Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez (I totally want to write that with an enya), and it was good. The novel is the story of a friendship formed at Barnard in the 60s betwen a woman from a poor family (the narrator) and a woman who was from a wealthy family but rejected her roots (Ann). There is a lot of unpleasant activist-ese in the book - enough that there are some ponderous portions early on. Things get a bit more interesting later on after the narrator leaves college and...more I also finished reading Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez (I totally want to write that with an enya), and it was good. The novel is the story of a friendship formed at Barnard in the 60s betwen a woman from a poor family (the narrator) and a woman who was from a wealthy family but rejected her roots (Ann). There is a lot of unpleasant activist-ese in the book - enough that there are some ponderous portions early on. Things get a bit more interesting later on after the narrator leaves college and deals with some of the disillusionment in the post-60s era. In the last half of the book, Nunez gets quite a bit more conversational, and her style flows in a less rigid manner - this is definitely the best part of the book, and then I had a hard time putting it down.
I found myself in some very uncomfortable passages in this book; I remember when I was a kid how I ran with the Socialists and assorted hippie-wanna-bes in SLC. Some of the slogans and attitudes touched painful nerves - I don't remember precisely how I came to encounter this. Actually, that's not true: one major catalyst for several years of self-loathing and anger directed at "whitey" has a single name: college. However, it didn't just start there - I remember the Mondale/Ferraro presidential campaign ad which included (with CSN's "Teach your Children" in the background) alternating clips of children crying and missles (presumably nuclear) launching. I remember being sensitive to this: I looked at nuclear holocaust as a foregone conclusion, which is pretty bleak for a 12-year-old.
At the University of Maryland, I remember encountering Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and being wracked with collective guilt over what I presumed were the crimes of all white people. When I went back to Utah, the socialists pretty actively recruited me, and I got familiar with Malcolm X and various Palestinian liberation writers - I internalized the deeply racist attitudes they preached (that white people were guilty of all of the crimes ever) and remained trapped in anger for several years.
Coming out of that experience took a long time - I was certainly insufferable, and I'm glad that some friends and family at least were willing to suffer my presence through that.
I finally had a cognition: any approach which attempts to apportion blame for the condition of the world, rather than exhorting each of us to do our small part to improve the little part of the world in which we find ourselves, is far more likely to be complete horseshit than to be enlightened truth.

Anyway, the Last of Her Kind is quite good, and definitely worth reading. There are some very frank moments where ideologies clash with reality, and in those moments the author lets the characters shine with their internal truths; this in turn makes them all the more human. Good stuff.(less)

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Dec 12, 2010 Christine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, dark-radicals

This book was interesting in several ways.

Written in non-linear first-person memoir form, it is in fact a novel, but includes the kind of personal character and emotion-driven detail one normally only sees in non-fiction. The narrator is often teasing about this blurred line between memoir and fiction, noting when events in the story - which is fiction, but from the narrator's point of view is memoir, seems to click rather conveniently with novelistic device. I found that rather clever.

On the o...more

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Dec 15, 2009 AJ Conroy marked it as to-read

Recommendation from Jezebel:
This was the best book I read in 2006, and for a long time it was my favorite novel. Two roommates meet at Barnard in 1968 — Ann comes from a wealthy family and Georgette is working-class. As Ann becomes a radical and gets deeply embroiled in the racial politics of the 1970s, Nunez examines her activism through the eyes of Georgette, to whom it sometimes seems like a luxury. Ann turns out to be disturbingly committed to her cause, but the position of a privileged pers...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Julie Turley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels-about-academia

In 1968, Georgette and Dooley are unlikely roommates in a Barnard dorm. Georgette "George" was raised by a punitive "monster" of a mother in hard-scrabble upstate New York; Dooley, who now goes by "Ann" attempts to cast off the shackles of her uber-privileged Connecticut upbringing by joining the burgeoning counter-cultural revolution. Eventually, both women find the bourgeois academy irrelevant and drop out after their sophomore years. And following Barnard they "drop out" in a sense again: Geo...more

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Jan 09, 2011 Victoria rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

Nunez explores idealism against the backdrop of gender, racial, and cultural politics. Many critics thought this "strongly imagined portrait of the 1960s" the novel's "most striking" aspect (Wall Street Journal). A few, however, criticized Nunez for overemphasizing the turbulence of the period, casting judgment on it, and describing its madness__drug-induced hallucinations, for example__in unnecessary detail. The value of certain subplots, including one involving Georgette's runaway hippie siste

...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is not the kind of book I would ordinarily enjoy. I'm usually not a huge fan of memoirs, and this book is written in the style of one. However, I read a quote from the novel and was committed to reading the book because of it.
"Are you a political prisoner, Dooley?"
Her blue eyes, immense now in her gaunt face, turned a pitying gaze on the reporter who'd asked her this. "Yes," she said. "And so are you."
This was a challenging book to read for me personally, as I was often torn about my feelin...more

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Aug 16, 2009 Nitya rated it 3 of 5 stars

College roommates at Barnard in 1968, one from a privileged family and one from quite the opposite, find themselves in NYC during the height of the political and social revolution of the sixties.
Ann, the wealthy one, is radically devoted to social justice. She'd asked for a roommate as much unlike herself as possible, and wishes she were black. Georgette is happy to be away from her small town and dysfunctional family, and is just beginning to learn about herself and the world.
I liked this b...more

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Sep 25, 2009 Janet rated it 3 of 5 stars

The central plot of this sometimes-sprawling novel, set largely in and against the backdrop of the countercultural 1960s, is the relationship between Georgette, the narrator, and Ann, her driven, idealistic college roommate. Ann is a child of wealth and privilege, who profoundly spurns and regrets every aspect of both in the quest for social jutice. She is a messy, infuriating and compelling character, and this book thrives when it does not go too far away from Ann. Some subplots, especially a l...more

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Mar 21, 2008 Melanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I am fascinated by 1968 and this was a great portrait of the time, as well as an interesting character study regarding idealism of that time, and putting things into modern perspective. I really liked these characters. none of them seemed perfect, but all of them seemed real.

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Mar 06, 2012 Emma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, united-states, literary-fiction, 4-stars

I tend to avoid books set in the U.S. post-WWII. The ones that aspire to genuine literary merit tend toward pretention, high-handedness, and tedium. But The Last of Her Kind is different: it’s a well-written, thoughtful, thematically rich and, above all, an interesting book.

In 1968, Georgette George and Ann Drayton are assigned to room together at Barnard College. Georgette grew up in poverty in upstate New York; Ann comes from a rich family in Connecticut, but in an effort to disavow her privil...more I tend to avoid books set in the U.S. post-WWII. The ones that aspire to genuine literary merit tend toward pretention, high-handedness, and tedium. But The Last of Her Kind is different: it’s a well-written, thoughtful, thematically rich and, above all, an interesting book.

In 1968, Georgette George and Ann Drayton are assigned to room together at Barnard College. Georgette grew up in poverty in upstate New York; Ann comes from a rich family in Connecticut, but in an effort to disavow her privileged roots, requested a roommate as different from herself as possible. At first Georgette finds Ann unbearable, but soon they become friends, and the book follows their lives and their complicated relationship over more than 30 years.

I didn’t live through the 60s or 70s. I’d learned about that period, but I’d never seen it like this. Georgette, Ann and Georgette’s sister Solange are all (in different ways) a part of the radical hippie culture at the time, and this book does an excellent job of bringing that period to life in all its bizarre, fascinating weirdness. So the first half in particular works well as historical fiction. And Nunez's decision to write the book as if it were a memoir allows Georgette, as the narrator, to contrast America as it was then with America in the early 21st century, in non-obvious ways.

The book also shines in its examination of its characters and themes. Ann is one of those rare characters that the author really lets us come to our own conclusions about. Did she make a meaningful difference in the world? Or did she hurt the people around her more than her good works could make up for? Is she admirable in her sincerity and her willingness to practice what she preaches, or just obnoxious in her fanaticism? Can someone from a life of privilege really advocate for the underprivileged without being a hypocrite? How do you make that work? For instance: when Ann gets into legal trouble, she insists on being represented by a public defender, because she wants to get the same justice as everyone else. But then, her insistence on equality means she’s taking the public defender’s time away from actual poor people. So what should she have done? The book doesn’t try to answer these questions. But they’re absolutely questions worth asking.

The writing style is excellent, and full of insights into humanity without becoming sentimental or overwrought. The characters are complicated and interesting and feel genuine, although the narrator, Georgette, is somewhat less interesting than the others. Part of the reason I give 4 stars is that less than a month after finishing this book, I was having a hard time remembering her name. She's written as the more conventional one as a foil to Ann, but isn't especially memorable in her own right. The other part is that for the first 50 pages or so, before the book hits its stride, Georgette seems to tell us too much about what Ann is like rather than showing us through scenes, and that the random rape scene, much as it does fit into the novel’s themes, still felt gratuitous.

Overall, an excellent book, even if Literature-with-a-capital-L is something you generally avoid. I don’t reread often, but this is a book that deserves rereading--or just stopping to think as you read, rather than rushing through it in a day as I did. But I read it so quickly because it’s a compelling, well-written book, and that’s a recommendation in itself.(less)

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Feb 10, 2009 Steph rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book absolutely swallowed me...largely set within the turbulence of 1968, The Last of Her Kind made me wonder about the similarities and differences between then and now...how similar our current social ills are to that time, but how drastically different peoples and movements today are reacting to our present madness...for better and for worse.

I think I found the book especially engrossing because I read it while working with activist circles who were stuck in "the 60's" (what they did th...more

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Aug 19, 2009 Steven Salaita rated it 3 of 5 stars

I find this novel difficult to review. I didn't like it very much, but at times I loved it. The writing is often wooden, lacking any music or verve. The narrative can be clunky. I think what saves the novel is the fascinating story and the need it constantly provides readers to encounter some answers (which are revealed just enough to work).

The subject of the novel, Dooley "Ann" Drayton, is one of the most interesting literary characters I have seen in some time. The narrator is appropriately c...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Cflack rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book very compelling. These two women came from very different backgrounds, had a very intense friendship over a 2 year period and then moved on in separate directions. Ann was such a powerhouse of a character that she dominated George even after their friendship ended abruptly. It was around this same time that Solange came back into George's life, doing her own kind of domination. Although George had her own strengths and acomplishments, she seemed to be greatly effected by the st...more

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Aug 08, 2012 Michael Jenkins rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really hate to give this book a one, but my dislike of it did not prompt me to give me a higher rating. My biggest pet peeve with authors is that they add characters that is not relevant to the story, they are just characters that prance around having a story of their own. It grates me to read a book that started out so strong, but end so terribly. Ann and Georgette friendship was the best thing about this book, enjoyed reading about how different they were in terms of how they were raised, in...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Edith rated it 2 of 5 stars

I wasn’t as crazy about this book as I expected to be or as much as many other reviewers were...and I have been trying to figure out why. I was led to this book through the recommendation of Katy Keim in her BookSnob blog where she touts it as her “best book of 2009.” It was not so for me.

Simply put, I did not like the character of Ann in this story- the rich girl activist who had nothing but disdain for her upbringing, parents, and privileged life and who thought that it was only the poor who w...more

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Mar 04, 2013 Ricci rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book brought back many suppressed memories of the 60's generation and the feminist movement. I love the way Nunez developed Ann's character. She is truly a tragic heroine who was unwavering in her beliefs, but my favorite character in this story is definitely Georgette. I can relate to her familial background (like strangers talking, no common ground) and the paradoxical situation of wanting to live in the past world of traditional values and the modern 60's new world values. This novel was...more

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Jul 12, 2010 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

I like it but was a bit confused at times about who the book was actually about. It changed tenses a couple times, which was explained once and not explained at another time. It was sad but had a satisfying ending. I think this book will stay with me for awhile. And I love when that happens with any book. It gave me some things to think about - mostly about our relationships with others and how that shapes us. The fight that the two characters had in the book wasn't really that believable to me...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Malena Watrous rated it 3 of 5 stars

As a Barnard grad, I was intrigued by the premise of this book and a glimpse into the school at an earlier time. I really liked the voice of the opening and the story of two roommates from vastly different class backgrounds. The narrator's roommate, with her fascination for (and exoticizing of) people of lower class backgrounds, and minorities, was appalling, awful and totally believable to me. I liked the way that the narrator grudgingly got close to her and relied on her, in spite of that awfu...more

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Aug 11, 2009 Gustine rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: tried-hard-but-unable-to-finish

I loved the first quarter of the book, in which we get to know the two characters, and their college life in the early seventies is described in detail. I was looking forward to finding out what the terrible thing involving Ann was. But by the time I got there I was rapidly losing interest, and the incident itself was not intriguing to me in the slightest, so I decided there was probably no reason to finish the book. I figured the last quarter of the book was probably all about the aftermath of...more

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About Sigrid Nunez

(Photograph ©Marion Ettlinger, 2005)

Sigrid Nunez is an author of five novels including her debut, A Feather on the Breath of God: A Novel (1996, ISBN 0-06-092684-8), Naked Sleeper, Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury, For Rouenna, and The Last of Her Kind. She often addresses class and violence in her novels. She chronicles a time period, such as the 1960's, socially, politically, and intimately in t...more

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Quotes from The Last of Her Kind

“Here are more lines from The Great Gatsby. I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives, and no one would ever know or disapprove.

I like to remember when I was one of them, or to pretend that I am one of them still, sensing that restless man at my back and half turning, no, turning all the way, open-armed, saying, Pick me, pick me.” — 1 person liked it

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