About the Book
The Stark Beauty of Last Things is set in Montauk, the far reaches of the famed Hamptons, an area under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected legacy: the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land.
Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who are struggling to hold onto their property against pressure to sell. When a forest fire breaks out, Clancy comes under suspicion for arson, complicating his efforts to navigate competing agendas for the best uses of the land and to find the healing and home he has always longed for.
Told from multiple points of view, The Stark Beauty of Last Things explores our connection to nature—and what we stand to lose when that connection is severed.
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About the Author
Céline Keating is the author of two novels, Layla (2011) and Play for Me (2015), and co-editor of On Montauk, A Literary Celebration. Her novel The Stark Beauty of Last Things will be released in October 2023. Her fiction has received two first-place fiction awards, the Tucson Festival of Books and the Hackney Award for Short Fiction, and has been published in many literary magazines. Céline’s latest novel was inspired by living part-time in Montauk, Long Island, and she serves on the board of environmental organization Concerned Citizens of Montauk. She and her husband recently moved to Bristol, Rhode Island, where she will explore a different coastal environment.
What People Are Saying
From Foreword Reviews
” … lush, elegiac … in stunning prose [it] highlights loss, the transience of home, and the impermanence of human affections.”
From The Montauk Sun
“Keating’s characters are engaging and complex, portrayed in a story that is captivating and relatable … the perfect read for personal enjoyment, as well as for a book club.”
From NPR/Baum on Books radio podcast
“ … 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.”
Interviews with Céline Keating
“In Conversation With the Exceptionally Gifted and Acclaimed Author Céline Keating,” By Norm Goldman, Book Pleasures, July 5, 2023
Upcoming Events
- December 8, Author Reading & Q&A, hosted by book inc
- 6:30 p.m., Asbury Book Cooperative, (644A Cookman Ave, Asbury Park, NJ