The Last Crossing

A Novel

By: Guy Vanderhaeghe

Narrated by: John Henry Cox, John Keating, Colin Lane, Tom McKeon, Simon Prebble, Chelsey Rives

Master storyteller Guy Vanderhaeghe, hailed by Richard Ford as "simply a wonderful writer," takes us on an exhilarating journey from the ivy-covered towers of Oxford in Victorian England to the dusty whiskey trading posts of the nineteenth-century American and Canadian West.

Englishmen Charles and Addington Gaunt are ordered by their tyrannical industrialist father to find their brother Simon, who has gone missing in the wilds of the American West. Charles, a disillusioned artist, and Addington, a disgraced military captain, set off to Fort Benton in America and enlist the services of a guide to lead them north, where Simon was last seen. The brothers hire the enigmatic Jerry Potts, half Blackfoot, half Scot, who suffers from his own painful past. At Addington's command, the party grows to include Caleb Ayto, a sycophantic American journalist, who is to record the journey for posterity; Lucy Stoveall, a fiery and beautiful woman who is bent on finding the men who viciously killed her sister; Custis Straw, a Civil War veteran in love with Lucy; and saloon keeper Aloysius Dooley. This unlikely posse, now encumbered with both psychological baggage and wagon trains, becomes entangled in an unfolding drama that forces each to come to terms with his or her own demons.

Told from alternating points of view and in vivid flashbacks, The Last Crossing is a novel of ruggedness and salvation, an epic masterpiece set in a time when worlds collided, were destroyed, and were built new.

©2002 G&M Vanderhaege Productions Inc. and (P)2004 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

• Audie Award Finalist, Fiction (abridged), 2005

"Vanderhaeghe is a prodigiously gifted writer....no reader once embarked on this hugely involving adventure will be able to stop until it is done." (Publishers Weekly)
"A strong and varied cast....a narrative as carefully constructed and laboriously pieced together as a Lego Taj Mahal....[Vanderhaeghe is] a Dickensian sensationalist. His flair for the lurid can be exquisite." (The New York Times Book Review)
"As the various searches for revenge or redemption get under way the writing achieves unforced grace and power." (The New Yorker)
"Sumptuously imagined and fashioned with a master craftsman's attentiveness and finesse....Brilliant work." (Kirkus)

great story

Everything about this book is engaging with interesting characters and story line. I liked the ending too.

Don't pass this one by!

I really enjoyed this story about three very different brothers. In a way each one is unique and interesting enough to be entitled to their own novel, so in a way your getting three stories for the price of one. The brothers are from England, but the bulk of the story is an adventurous journey through the western USA and Canada. Alive with memorable characters, this work of fiction has historical facts and a real-life Canadian hero woven into a fascinating work of literature. Oh, I almost forgot Mrs. Stoveall and Custis Straw, unique story number four. I 'read' the unabridged audio version which is masterly performed by multiple readers, making each fascinating character come alive.

Worth the listen

It took awhile to get into the story. Interesting take on the British experiences during the Wild West era in the US.

Beautiful, evocative writing.

Compelling story with well structured and paced narrative. Separate voice artists for each narrator was very effective.

Hard to put down

Would you listen to The Last Crossing again? Why?

no, I usually don't listen to any books more than one time

Who was your favorite character and why?

Custis Straw was my favorite character. He is a great flawed, sympathetic hero and well defined.

What about the narrators???s performance did you like?

Using different narrators for the different characters really helped illustrate the story keep the characters clear in my mind

If you could rename The Last Crossing, what would you call it?

no opinion here

Any additional comments?

The very first part of the book was hard to get past, I stopped and started twice. Once I got past that section and the story picked up with the main characters, I was hooked. My MP3 player battery died on me several times because I was listening for hours.

The best of the wild West, the book brings, alive, the open country and the freedom and the danger.

I like the narration and the distinct voices of all the individuals involved in this fabulous journey to find a lost brother. I liked all of the characters, except of course the bad guys. What is special time in history of our history. We are really such a young country, with tenacious and brave individuals.

An old school "manly" adventure tale

This story follows a collection of men on various wilderness (including 19th century urban England) adventures where women are objects the people are cruel the weather is killing. The backdrop -post civil war US, is potentially explored in an interesting way but so raw and with so few sympathetic characters in the first few chapters -I gave up. If old school Wild West survival is your thing -have at it. The performances are good.

Couldn't do it

Despite two of my English teacher colleagues declaring this their favorite book of all time, I couldn't get past the first 45 minutes. Bored out of my mind. It probably got good in minute 46 -- I'll take the loss.

A Very Dark Story

A unique writing style and entertaining narration by a variety of voices are the agreeable aspects of this book. However, it is a very, very dark story with nothing but unhappy characters that become more unhappy as the story progresses. I certainly wouldn?t call it enjoyable. Just an experience.

Confused

I can't deny that the story was good, however I was trying to follow the audiobook with my actual book when I realized there are many parts in the physical copy missing from the audiobook