From Publishers Weekly
Moore's captivating fifth novel takes the form of entries in the diary of Lady Eleanor, a British aristocrat who travels in 1836 to Calcutta with her sister Harriet and her brother Henry, who has been appointed Governor-general of the colony. Like the narrator in Moore's 1995 thriller In the Cut, eloquent but snobbish Eleanor is not especially likable-she's convinced of her own superiority, even over her own "inordinately sensitive" sister. But she's a fascinating heroine-not only because she teases readers with hints of her unusually close relationship with Henry. During her six years in India, Eleanor undergoes a striking transformation, realizing that her "life-once a fastidious nibble-has turned into an endless disorderly feast." The Eleanor who likened Calcutta to hell becomes a woman able to admire her sister (who quickly falls in love with India), appreciate her exotic surroundings and recognize the folly of her stuffy fellow Englishmen and their attempts to recreate British culture on the subcontinent. She starts to question the idea of empire and to respect Indian culture; by the time Henry's tenure is up, she mourns the loss of her "elation of toiling through isolation and wonder." In precise, elegant prose, Moore vividly evokes the country's beauty and overwhelming otherness, but her exploration of character is even more interesting. Moore spent two years studying England and India in that era, and her novel was inspired by the diaries of Emily Eden, an Englishwoman in Calcutta; as a result, her protagonist is nuanced and convincing. As Eleanor writes in her diary, "The writing of women is always read in the hope of discovering women's secrets"; Eleanor and her creator reveal just enough glimpses to keep readers transfixed.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Eleanor, the narrator of this novel in journal form, spends the majority of the time either sick or drugged. This gives a rather feverish and confusing view of British life in early-nineteenth-century India. When her father dies, she, her brother (with whom she has an incestuous relationship), and her sister are left in financial peril. They are minor nobility, and her brother is appointed governor-general of India. The two sisters and a cousin accompany him on the hellish journey. Despite her growing opium addiction, Eleanor slowly begins to gain an understanding of the damage the British empire is doing on the Indian subcontinent. Eleanor is mesmerizing, if not always lucid or likable. Those unfamiliar with the history of the time or place may find they need additional reading to fill in certain blanks. Marta Segal
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Intriguing. . . . Moore . . . conjure[s] the heat and light and color of this hot, beautiful land, its smells and sensual allure. A compelling and richly textured story."--The New York Times

“Moore is a wonderful writer with a sensuous style. . . . [One Last Look] takes on the quality of a feverish dream.” --The Baltimore Sun

“How marvelous is a book that educates but does not preach. . . . [A] cautionary tale for smart women . . . and dumb men . . . but the beauty of the prose and the complexity of the narrative here far outweigh any edifying messages.” --The Washington Post

“A beauitiful and powerful novel that records one woman’s experience while illuminating a world of imperial folly and colonial rapacity and stupidity.” --The Boston Globe

“Vertinginous. . . .The sense of passing through a distant, phantasmagorical place with a curious and perceptive guide, is undeniable.” --The Seattle Times

“It is the secret world of women that Moore excels at painting, a world of unspoken truths and oblique connections.” —Time Out New York

“[A] stranger, extoic, ungraspable place. . . . Moore is an extraordinarily gifted conjurer of weather, smells and sickness; riches, bliasters and bugs, her words steam directly off the page.” --Chicago Tribune

“The descriptive prose leaves one feeling the hot, dusty days and torrential monsoons....Moore’s image of saffron-tinged India will have readers pulling out their Baedeker’s and booking passage on the next ship sailing for foreign climes.” —Library Journal

“[C]aptivating...fascinating...As Eleanor writes in her diary, ‘The writing of women is always read in the hope of discovering women’s secrets’; Eleanor and her creator reveal just enough glimpses to keep readers transfixed.” —Publishers Weekly

“[R]ich, lush...and wonderfully satisfying.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[E]leanor is mesmerizing....” —Booklist

“[E]vocative...” —Harper’s Bazaar

“An enormous accomplishment–vivid and precise, evocative and alluring, reflective of impressive scholarship. . . . Moore is an extraordinarily gifted conjurer of weather, smells and sickness; riches, blisters and bugs. Her words stream directly off the page.”–The Chicago Tribune

“Splendid. . . . A rueful farewell to an age of conquest and colonization that–despite its period trappings–looks peculiarly like our own. A deeply moving story of empowerment and loss.”–O, The Oprah Magazine

“Lyrical. . . . [Filled with] lushly described landscape and coyly revealed Victorian sexual eccentricities.”–Entertainment Weekly

“What Moore has done is to squeeze out of her peppery observations a nascent feminism and a covert sexuality. She heats Eden up.” --The New York Times Book Review

“Chilling. . . . [Moore] gives Eleanor a rich interior life and a mordant humor.” --Vogue

“[Moore] excels at evoking time and place–the dresses and the narrative voice just so, the moans of the mango bird in the tree exquisitely described.”–The New Yorker

“Breathtaking. . . . An engaging, luscious read. The characters are richly drawn . . . [and] rise effortlessly from the page.” —The Oregonian

“The accomplishment of One Last Look is a gradual unfolding of sensual detail that is truly transporting.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Sensual steamy prose . . . masterfully evok[es] the likely sounds, smells and sights of early-19th-century life in colonial India.” —Houston Chronicle

“It is the secret world of women that Moore excels at painting, a world of unspoken truths and oblique connections. . . . It is a measure of Moore’s skill that they never are [discovered].” —Time Out New York

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Calcutta in 1836: an uneasy mix of two worlds - the patient, implacably unchangeable India and the tableau vivant of English life created of imperialism's desperation. This is where Lady Eleanor, her sister Harriet, and her brother, Henry - the newly appointed Governor-General of the colony - arrive after a harrowing sea journey "from Heaven, across the world, to Hell."

But none of them will find India hellish in anticipated ways, and some - including Harriet and, against her better judgement, Eleanor - will find an irresistible and endlessly confounding heaven.

In Lady Eleanor - whose story is based on actual diaries - we have a keenly intelligent and observant narrator. Her descriptions of her profoundly unfamiliar world are vivid and sensual. The stultifying heat, the sensuous relief of the monsoon rains, the aromas and colors of the gardens and marketplaces, the mystifying grace and silence of the Indians themselves all come to rich life on the page. When she, Harriet, Henry, and ten thousand soldiers and servants make a three-year trek to the Punjab from Calcutta under Henry's failing leadership, Eleanor's impressions of the people and landscape are deepened, charged by her own revulsion and exaltation: "My life," she says, "once a fastidious nibble, has turned into an endless disorderly feast."

Harriet, whose passivity conceals a dazed openness to the true India, and Henry, with his frightened adherence to the crumbling ideals of empire, become foils to Eleanor's slow but inexorable seduction.

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

What Ms. Moore does so well in this book is what she did so well in her early novels set in Hawaii: she conjures the heat and light and color of this hot, beautiful land, its smells and sensual allure...Ms. Moore also chronicles with subtle emotional detail the effect that India—in both its exotic extravagance and its harrowing poverty—has on the narrator and her family...With One Last Look, Ms. Moore has worked a satisfying variation on many of her perennial themes and produced a compelling and richly textured story.—Michiko Kakutani

The Washington Post

How marvelous is a book that educates but does not preach! One Last Look is a cautionary tale for smart women...and dumb men...but the beauty of the prose and the complexity of the narrative here far outweigh any edifying messages.—Carolyn See

The New Yorker

There is a certain kind of historical fiction which excels at evoking time and place—the dresses and the narrative voice just so, the moans of the mango bird in the tree exquisitely described—but, like this novel, Moore’s fifth, fails to build into something larger. Henry Oliphant, the new British Governor-General of India, comes to Calcutta with his two sisters in 1836. They discover the country’s emeralds, brocades, and phalanxes of servants, but are sheltered, at least for a time, from its grotesque poverty, and from political dynamics that will cause Henry’s downfall. The narrative takes the form of a journal kept by the elder sister, and Moore has relied on contemporaneous accounts by British women in India both for factual details and for her prose style. The over-all effect, however accomplished, is so studied that it brings to mind the virtuoso performances that the narrator herself records: the snake charmer, or the monkey who climbs tall trees to pick tea leaves.

Publishers Weekly

Moore's captivating fifth novel takes the form of entries in the diary of Lady Eleanor, a British aristocrat who travels in 1836 to Calcutta with her sister Harriet and her brother Henry, who has been appointed Governor-general of the colony. Like the narrator in Moore's 1995 thriller In the Cut, eloquent but snobbish Eleanor is not especially likable-she's convinced of her own superiority, even over her own "inordinately sensitive" sister. But she's a fascinating heroine-not only because she teases readers with hints of her unusually close relationship with Henry. During her six years in India, Eleanor undergoes a striking transformation, realizing that her "life-once a fastidious nibble-has turned into an endless disorderly feast." The Eleanor who likened Calcutta to hell becomes a woman able to admire her sister (who quickly falls in love with India), appreciate her exotic surroundings and recognize the folly of her stuffy fellow Englishmen and their attempts to recreate British culture on the subcontinent. She starts to question the idea of empire and to respect Indian culture; by the time Henry's tenure is up, she mourns the loss of her "elation of toiling through isolation and wonder." In precise, elegant prose, Moore vividly evokes the country's beauty and overwhelming otherness, but her exploration of character is even more interesting. Moore spent two years studying England and India in that era, and her novel was inspired by the diaries of Emily Eden, an Englishwoman in Calcutta; as a result, her protagonist is nuanced and convincing. As Eleanor writes in her diary, "The writing of women is always read in the hope of discovering women's secrets"; Eleanor and her creator reveal just enough glimpses to keep readers transfixed. (Oct.) Forecast: This is another departure for Moore, who before In the Cut was associated with coming-of-age narratives anchored in her native Hawaii. Some readers may be thrown by her unpredictable trajectory, but others will appreciate her ability to apply her distinctive voice to different eras and genres. 75,000 first printing. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

KLIATT - Nola Theiss