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Eve Rosen is invited into a seductive, literary world she thinks will turn her into a writer. But will she have to lose herself to find her own voice?

In the 1980s, famed New Yorker writer Henry Grey and his poet wife Tillie throw Cape Cod’s most unmissable party each summer’s end, a legendary fête for the literary elite. Twenty-five-year-old aspiring writer Eve Rosen finagles her way into this Gatsbyesque orbit, which is completely different from her conventional, Jewish upbringing. But moving into one sphere means leaving another behind, and as Eve tries to negotiate the differences between her family values and this glittering world, she learns the risks of unbridled ambition and the importance of making her own choices about who she wants to be.

Lyrically evoking a bygone era with contemporary resonance, The Last Book Party charts Eve’s soundings as she learns to navigate the deep waters of sex, love, and life over the course of one fateful summer. Poignant, unerringly wise, and delightfully funny, Dukess’s debut tells the universal coming-of-age story of finding our way and our voice, one misstep and one false note at a time.

Reviews

“A spare, bittersweet page-turner …Dukess’s unmistakable love of words, stories and “book people” is what keeps you bobbing briskly along with the waves.”
—The New York Times

“The Last Book Party is a delight. Reading this story of a young woman trying to find herself while surrounded by the bohemian literary scene during a summer on the Cape in the late ’80s, I found myself nodding along in so many moments and dreading the last page. Karen Dukess has rendered a wonderful world to spend time in.”
—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Daisy Jones & The Six

“I tore through this novel in a single night. Intensely charming, intelligent, sexy, and specific, The Last Book Party immerses us in the incestuous world of the 1980s literary elite, from boozy, publicist-thrown parties in Manhattan to the writing nooks of a New Yorker staff writer on Cape Cod. The novel’s narrator, Eve, has all the insecurities and doubts of any 25-year-old aspiring writer but doesn’t let those stop her from being a compelling, bold, active heroine in charge of her own life. This is the summer’s most delicious and intelligent beach read.”
—Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth (finalist for National Book Award)

“Written with fresh confidence and verve, this first novel is a bibliophile’s delight, with plenty of title-dropping and humorous digs at the publishing scene of the 1980s….The lyrical evocations of the Cape Cod landscape will also enchant readers seeking that perfect summer read.”
—Kirkus

“The Last Book Party is at once delightfully gossipy and intellectually serious, an ode to literature and a warning against hero-worship.” –ElectricLit

“A funny, sweetly melancholy novel about youth, age, romance, the seashore, and, always, books—writing them, reading them, and learning all they can and cannot teach us. What a pleasure to attend Karen Dukess’s The Last Book Party.”
—Cathleen Schine, New York Times bestselling author of The Three Weissmanns of Westport and The Grammarians

This coming-of-age novel offers up a healthy dose of late ’80s nostalgia, and it’s a breezy read for book enthusiasts.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“Part coming of age, part gossipy peek into the enclave of writers, editors, poets, and artists who annually escaped the heat of Boston and New York to talk, drink, and work on Cape Cod, this semi-nostalgic debut is the ideal summer read for book people.
—Library Journal (starred review)

“Readers aching for the sun-dappled intrigue of André Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name or the wit of Francine Prose’s Blue Angel will find a kindred reading experience here…this journey of self-discovery is an ideal summer read for those who might shun more typical ‘beach-read’ offerings.”
―Booklist

“This beautiful novel manages to be both a delightful page-turner and a luminous coming-of-age story that grapples with themes of ambition, family, love, and how it feels to be a young woman finding her way in the world for the first time. I loved it.”
—Whitney Scharer, author of The Age of Light

“Charming, lovely, and written with a light touch, this book captures the longing and unease of summer romance amid the complexity of post-graduate life. Shades of [Philip Roth’s] Goodbye, Columbus, [Michael Chabon’s] The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and [Jay McInerney’s] Bright Lights, Big City haunt its pages.”
—Matthew Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of We Are Not Ourselves