I read The Last Rose of Summer immediately following Monte Schulz's The Big Town. I actually didn't know these stories were happening simultaneously. This was clearly evident in the very first chapter of Rose and was a very satisfying surprise. The Big Town left me wondering about the other half of Harry Hennesey's life, mainly his wife and children. In that book, Mr. Schulz very eloquently displayed Harry's rather piggish personality traits. He so effectively gave voice to Harry's inner thoughts, particularly about his wife Marie, that I was suspicious we weren't told the real truth about Marie and was very curious to delve deeper into her side of the story. Last Rose of Summer did just that. As wonderfully as Mr. Schulz expressed Harry's thoughts, motives, wishes and desires, he did an even better job revealing the depths of Marie's soul. What impressed me about this, of course, is that Mr. Schulz is a man and Marie is very much a woman. The accuracy of voicing her feelings, so feminine with respect to family loyalty, maternal love and nurturing, and her natural inclination to recognize her own faults and guilty desires, yet not succumb to them because of her obvious devotion to her louse of a husband, was brilliantly executed by the author. The eloquent prose continues in this book and, although I thoroughly enjoyed The Big Town, the ending in Last Rose of Summer was more satisfying. Perhaps this lies in the fact that Marie was transformed into a stronger, more independent woman by its end yet The Big Town left me with an unsatisfying lack of resolution to Harry as a character. I look forward to reading the other book in this trilogy, This Side of Jordan. I read these completely out of order but, nevertheless, I'm glad I found them. Mr. Schulz is an American writer of epic proportions.