The City of Your Final Destination - Softcover

Cameron, Peter

3.86

2,707 ratings by Goodreads

9780452284302: The City of Your Final Destination

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452284309 ISBN 13: 9780452284302

Publisher: Plume, 2003

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Omar Razaghi, a twenty-eight-year-old doctoral student at the University of Kansas, has won a grant to write a biography of Jules Gund, a deceased Latin American writer. There's just one obstacle: Gund's family has not given him authorization. Undeterred, Omar travels to Uruguay, unannounced, to petition the author's three executors in person: Gund's widow, his much younger mistress, and his brother. Omar's arrival sets in motion a series of events that upsets the precarious balance of life at Ochos Rios, the family's crumbling estate. As long-standing relationships undergo seismic shifts and force the time-stuck inhabitants of Ochos to look toward that most dreaded of places: the future.

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Review:

Peter Cameron's sublime, beautiful novel City of Your Final Destination concerns true love and a young academic's struggle to break free from a life he's molded but doesn't want to live. Omar Razaghi, who's pursuing a Ph.D. at a Midwestern university, fudges his application for grant money, stating he has already obtained authorization from the family of the deceased minor novelist Jules Gund. When he belatedly seeks permission to proceed, the three executors--Gund's brother, Adam; former wife Caroline; and Arden, Gund's mistress and mother of Gund's daughter, Portia--decline. Prompted by his girlfriend, Deirdre, Omar shows up unexpectedly in Uruguay, seeking to convince the family of his--and their--need for a biography of Jules Gund to exist.

Cameron is an able storyteller, and his command allows the prose to flow simply and beautifully; here, most every word counts. Adam's often hilarious wit and Caroline's recalcitrance are sharply drawn, descriptions are in crisp relief, and Cameron gives us many reasons to smile: "Pete stood there for a moment, as if he were deciding, trying to think of a reason why he must stay with them, but he was not clever enough, and so of course he had to leave." The City of Your Final Destination is a refreshing look at the impact of desire and love on quirky, elegantly drawn characters. --Michael Ferch

About the Author:

Peter Cameron is the author of The Weekend and Andorra. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Grand Street, and The Paris Review. He lives in New York City.

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