The poetic title of Céline Keating’s novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things hints at an aesthetic exploration of an elemental world. The book’s a beach read-only in the sense that it takes place near the ocean and bays in Montauk. In fact, it's a book for all seasons.
The characters mainly working class and small business owners don't constitute a community. But as it becomes clear that overdevelopment and climate change are seriously affecting the environment and people's livelihoods, five people will come together to see if at least they can agree on what to do with an 11-acre moorlands parcel that was part of an arrangement with a town, each man having a vote.
One vote belongs to Otto who has just died oddly enough leaving his share to a relative stranger. A 36-year-old claims adjuster from Queens, Clancy who had shown up at Otto's house a couple of days earlier. It seems that when Clancy was an orphan after living unhappily in foster homes and a reformed school, Otto came along as a big brother and took him in hand and to Montauk. Clancy loved it. When he comes out for a brief visit to attend a fundraiser for a friend's documentary combating coastal erosion, he decides to look up Otto when he hears someone mention his name.
It's a heartwarming reunion. But then Otto dies. Although Clancy would appear to be the protagonist, he shares the narrative with the other locals who hold votes on the moorlands. Clancy's vote is critical since each of the others has a different idea about what's best for the town and for them.
Otto’s daughter Theresa, who works as a bartender in town would have been her father's heir but she hates him and refuses to have anything to do with him or his property.
Another wants to support affordable housing. Still, another, a hustler, wants to sell and make a killing. The reader learns more incrementally about Theresa and the others in alternating chapters. Keating knows her way around Montauk and the human heart.
The Stark Beauty of Last Things is an intelligent, psychologically astute, and beautifully written tale about the relationship of man and nature with not one predictable or cliched sentiment or situation in sight. She may pluck at the heartstrings, but she's skilled enough to ensure that the chord that follows is somewhat dissonant.
The aspect however that can be anticipated is that Clancy basically a loner is getting involved with a place he never imagined would move him so. He sees the sea and sky, dunes, and forests on solitary walks through the eyes of children with new friends.
What is particularly surprising is the way Keating sets up the various oppositions. No simple them versus us, evil developer versus longtime local, big money men versus trailer park denizens, aging commercial fisherman contending against the wealthy sports fishing industry. The Stark Beauty of Last Things is nuanced literature, not a message book.
The ending will also surprise not what was expected or maybe even hoped for. Julienne, an artist and the owner of a bungalow colony where Clancy is staying, active in the Save Open Space movement says that Montauk on the ocean is home for the soul. So not to fight for its preservation would be like failing to prevent her own death. But she also sees that her landscape paintings are getting darker, moodier, more agitated.
Keating who's back jacket bio lists her as co-editor of On Montauk: A Literary Celebration and as a board member of Concerned Citizens of Montauk is for sure a visionary but hardly and blinders. Nostalgia is history. Salvation lies in change.
