Forgotten treasure

A good novel is more than a string of good sentences, but the sentences in Elisabeth Savage's The Last Night at the Ritz (1973) are so good you might miss the fact that it is also a good novel. I found myself reading many of these sentences more than once, meaning that reading the novel once was almost like reading it twice. No wonder it took me so long to make it through a 188-page book.

Another reason for that could be the many digressions by the story's unnamed narrator, a middle-aged woman whose literary aspirations, like her first husband (she calls him "the real one"), died young. Even her digressions often have digressions, meaning readers frequently need to reorientate themselves to figure out where they are. In other words, the novel takes a little work, worth it though it is.

The novel occupies just one day in Boston when our narrator meets her best friend, Gay, and Gay's husband, Len, for some drinking, dining and reminiscing. Yet through the many digressions, or flashbacks, we learn virtually everything significant about the relationship of these three people from college days till now.

Our narrator — how I wish she had a name — had a brief affair with Len years before. She is childless but regards Gay and Len's eldest son, Charley, as her own son. Len works for a publishing company. Both Gay and nameless once hoped to be published themselves.

Several factors bring things to a boil on this day in Boston. They are all drinking too much. Len worries about Charley, now in Canada dodging the draft. Gay worries about Marta, Len's lovely and self-assured assistant who goes with them on their night on the town. Wes, a man with whom the narrator has had a casual affair, is also at their table, as is Walter, an author whose first book has just been accepted for publication.

OK, not much really happens, but Savage gives us every subtle nuance, every little change in mood, so one is aware of a great deal happening just beneath the surface.

And then there are those wonderful sentences. One could almost open the novel anywhere, point a finger blindly and find a choice one.

Although an excellent novel, The Last Night at the Ritz was quickly forgotten soon after publication, forgotten by everyone but Nancy Pearl, that is. Pearl raved about it in one of her Book Lust books. Then it and few other forgotten treasures were reprinted as Book Lust Rediscoveries. Before it is forgotten again, discover it for yourself.