Told from multiple points of view, The Stark Beauty of Last Things explores our connection to nature—and what we stand to lose when that connection is severed.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Céline Keating’s The Stark Beauty of Last Things, which releases on October 24th!
The Stark Beauty of Last Things is set in Montauk, the far reaches of the famed Hamptons, an area under looming threat from a warming climate and overdevelopment. Now outsider Clancy, a thirty-six-year-old claims adjuster scarred by his orphan childhood, has inherited an unexpected the power to decide the fate of Montauk’s last parcel of undeveloped land.
Everyone in town has a stake in the outcome, among them Julienne, an environmentalist and painter fighting to save the landscape that inspires her art; Theresa, a bartender whose trailer park home is jeopardized by coastal erosion; and Molly and Billy, who are struggling to hold onto their property against pressure to sell. When a forest fire breaks out, Clancy comes under suspicion for arson, complicating his efforts to navigate competing agendas for the best uses of the land and to find the healing and home he has always longed for.
Theresa Nolan watched Clancy Fredericks cross to the door and slam it shut. Under her fingers, the surface of the bar felt slick. She gave it a wipe, threw down the rag, and headed to the ladies’ room.
She had vowed never to speak to her father again; this jerk, with his saccharine memories, wasn’t going to change that.
She remembered Clancy from those childhood visits; she resented him even then.
Her father had said, “He’s an orphan. I want you to be nice to him.”
What she remembered thinking was, Let someone else be nice to him, you’re my daddy. Her father had always been distant, and when he began to bring Clancy home, it had become clear: Her father had wanted a boy.
She bent over the sink and splashed water on her face. Her cheeks were flaming the way they always did when she was angry, flushed almost the color of her hair. The day her world fell apart, the day her mother died, she told her father he was a betrayer, a liar, and a killer. As she saw the shame in his eyes, she realized the balance of power between them had shifted. She was steel, she was diamond, focused to a bright, hard point. She would not soften.
That had been twelve years ago, when she was eighteen. She got a job as a waitress and trained as a bartender at the Promised Land. She liked how it nestled up against the dock, close enough to smell the fish remains and to trip over the odd coil of rope or the three-legged dog that hung about. It was a rough, homey bar like a thousand other dockside bars, with wood-scarred tables and dirty fishnet hanging from the ceiling. She liked its unpretentiousness, and its anonymity. She liked living at the funky trailer park on the outskirts of town, liked the feeling of being on the tip of the island, the edge of the world, close enough to fall off. But there were times—times when she was reminded of her father’s presence or when men got to her—when she feared somehow she’d be driven away from this place she loved.
As she returned from the ladies’ room, Marty, the owner, emerged from the back lot via the kitchen, an unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. He was built like a keg of beer, in his mid-fifties, and showed every second of it. He glanced down at Theresa’s breasts and said, “Nice shirt.”
Theresa turned her back and refilled the bowls of nuts and goldfish. Despite her disrespect, Marty wouldn’t fire her because she was popular and could work any bar she wanted on the East End.
Kathy rushed in with her usual apologies for being late. The place was beginning to fill, mostly with fishermen. First the old-timers, who were too old to go out much but who never tired of telling stories or complaining about how much better things used to be. Then the young Turks, fresh off the water, boisterous and boastful, stinking of sweat, oil, and fish guts.
The hard-core regulars would line up at the bar, watching sports with one eye and her with the other. Sometimes she felt like a caged animal, performing for a circus audience, or a croupier, dealing napkins.
“Who was that guy you chased away?”
Sky slid onto a stool, Sky with his sky-blue eyes. He was protective of her, under the misapprehension that because she’d slept with him a few years back, theirs was a special connection. She was happy to let him think so. Ever since she’d given up her promiscuous ways and found refuge in the Church, she kept her true self tucked away, like a stone wrapped tightly in a square of moleskin. Her true intimacies were with God, and the sand, cliffs, and ocean in which He was reflected.
Still, she liked Sky. She liked looking at him, too. He claimed to have descended from an Algonquin who had married one of the early British settlers, and he had the broad high cheekbones and strong brows of native peoples. But his hair, which hung straight to his shoulders, was a coppery blond, striking against his blue eyes. His nickname had as much to do with his airhead personality as his eye color. He was never without the blue bandanna he wore headband-style, in solidarity, he said, with his ancestors.
“Just some jerk.”
“I worried he was hassling you.”
“Not like that.” She lifted a glass off the overhead rack and slid it under the tap. What had Clancy Frederics really wanted, she wondered. Why play emissary for her father, if that was what he was doing? Foam poured up and over the edge of the glass—an amateur’s mistake. She wiped the glass and slid it across the bar.
“I hear the fishing’s been slow.” She couldn’t have cared less but keeping up with the waters was part of the job.
“Yeah, everybody’s freaked.”
Only once had she gone fishing with her father. After he had taken that boy, that Clancy, she begged him to take her, too. He showed her how to cast, his hand cupping her elbow, guiding her arm up and back. These days, if she spied her father at the post office or the grocery store, she out-waited him or turned away. He had given up trying to speak with her. Why would he contact her now?
© Céline Keating 2023
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CÉLINE KEATING is an award-winning writer formerly of New York City and now living in Bristol, Rhode Island. She is the author of two novels, Layla (2011), a Huffington Post featured title, and the award-winning Play for Me (2015). Her short fiction has been published in such literary journals as Prairie Schooner, Santa Clara Review, and more. She has contributed articles to Acoustic Guitar, Coastal Living, Writers’ Digest, and Poets & Writers magazines, and is the co-editor of On Montauk, A Literary Celebration. Céline grew up in Queens, New York. She earned a Masters in Creative Writing from City College, CUNY. For many years a resident of Montauk, New York, she serves on the board of environmental organization Concerned Citizens of Montauk. Find her online at celinekeating.com
