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Disclaimer (or really, how lucky I am): I’m related to Fiona. You can read more about that here. She spent several years as a child here in Cleveland.
The New York Times Book Review says about her first published work of book-length fiction, Last Last Chance:
Maazel’s book has enough event — and enough eccentricity — to torpedo your average novel.
But “Last Last Chance” isn’t your average novel, thanks in no small part to Maazel’s funny, lacerating prose. The book fits squarely in the tradition of novels about the wealthy and dissolute, but ultimately it’s less John Cheever than Denis Johnson — the Denis Johnson of “Jesus’ Son,” with its drug-addled narrators — though Maazel’s voice is more caffeinated, more fueled by attitude (“I don’t even know whether they do the Eucharist at a memorial. Do the Eucharist? Is that like do the hustle?”) and more prone to hectoring. “There’s nothing worse than a drug addict with opinions,” Lucy observes.
Maazel is particularly adept at conveying the desperation of the addict, how everything — even a potentially world-ending plague — is eclipsed by the need for a fix. She depicts the mixture of terror and sang-froid as people stay riveted to the TV, watching superplague mark its serpentine course across the map even as they go about their own business. Most of all, she shows what fear does to people: “They might say: I am simply protecting my family. Or: I will screw you over a thousand times if it means protecting myself. How long before the prom teens or the family in F-7 disbanded? How long before survival trounced compassion?”
But Maazel’s novel is most powerful in its quieter, more mundane moments. Perhaps above all else, “Last Last Chance” is about a young woman trying to get over the man she loves. Early in the book, Maazel sketches the trajectory of Lucy and Eric’s relationship, and she packs more honest emotion in four short pages than I’ve seen in many a complete novel. Later, Lucy muses: “When the plague got here, and it would, who would I have to hole up with? Whose life would I have to fear for the most? … When the bomb drops, your first thought is: How can I get to him? But for me, I’d have no one. No one to curl up and die with.”
I’ve never been one to write fiction – I think I wrote one story once, as an adult writer. And I perceive it as an insurmountably difficult form of writing for me.
Which makes me even more proud and excited and happy for Fiona.
Congrats, Fiona. This is awesome.
By Jill Miller Zimon at 9:44 am April 6th, 2008 in Announcements, Cleveland+, Culture, Media, Ohio, Social Issues, Women, Writing
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i just finished this book and it was the funniest, saddest thing i’ve
read in i don’t know how long. there’s so much warmth and vitality and
insight here, and courage and fury and imagination and flat-out
terrific writing. wow.