The Last Act
"The Last Act" is a 1966 short story by Roald Dahl, described by its author as an attempt to write about "murder by fucking."[1][2] It was first published in the January 1966 issue of Playboy, having been rejected by The New Yorker because of its disturbing content.[1] It was later included in the collection Switch Bitch, published in 1974 by Michael Joseph Ltd.
Synopsis
Middle-aged New York widow Anna Cooper has been contemplating suicide after losing her beloved husband Ed in a car accident, but begins to feel life may be worth living again after helping out in a friend's adoption agency. While visiting Dallas, Texas alone on agency business, Anna starts to feel uneasy and vulnerable. She remembers that an old flame, Dr. Conrad Kreuger, lives in Dallas, and telephones him from her hotel. Anna and Conrad had been high school sweethearts, but Anna had left Conrad to marry Ed, and Conrad had married another woman soon afterwards. Conrad seems pleased to hear from Anna, and suggests they meet in her hotel's bar for a drink. When he arrives, Anna learns that Conrad is a gynecologist and is now divorced. While he appears sympathetic when Anna describes her emotional fragility, he reveals he still feels bitter about the way she had jilted him. Nevertheless, Conrad suggests that he and Anna might have "a bit of unfinished business." Anna has drunk several martinis, and lets Conrad take her to her hotel room. They prepare to make love, but Conrad suddenly becomes aggressive, pinning Anna down on the bed and "diagnosing" her as having menopausal symptoms. When Anna begins screaming, Conrad pushes her to the floor, and she staggers, sobbing, to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. When Conrad – who has evidently planned revenge on Anna for breaking up with him – hears her open the bathroom cabinet, he quickly dresses and leaves the room. (The implication is that Anna will commit suicide by cutting her wrists with a razor blade.)
Reception
Dahl's biographer, Jeremy Treglown, states that "The Last Act" is a story that Dahl "would have done better to have scrapped... While the fiction is far from drawing readers into admiring Conrad, and its sympathies remain painfully with Anna, it has no purpose as a mechanism other than to lead to a crudely sensationalist conclusion."[3] Philosophy professor Bert Olivier analysed the story in some depth in his book Philosophy and Communication.[4]
References
- ^ a b Sturrock, Donald (2010). Storyteller: the life of Roald Dahl. London: HarperPress. p. 447. ISBN 9780007341184.
- ^ Heller, Zoë (20 October 2010). "The Miserabilist". New Republic. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
- ^ Treglown, Jeremy (9 September 2006). "The height of fancy". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 22 September 2015. Retrieved 20 December 2015.
- ^ Olivier, Bert (2009). "Sex, Literature, and Communication". Philosophy and Communication: Collected Essays. Oxford: Peter Lang. pp. 33–60. ISBN 9783039119028.
- v
- t
- e
- The Gremlins (1943)
- James and the Giant Peach (1961)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
- The Magic Finger (1966)
- Fantastic Mr Fox (1970)
- Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (1972)
- Danny, the Champion of the World (1975)
- The Enormous Crocodile (1978)
- The Twits (1980)
- George's Marvellous Medicine (1981)
- The BFG (1982)
- The Witches (1983)
- The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me (1985)
- Matilda (1988)
- Esio Trot (1990)
- The Vicar of Nibbleswicke (1991)
- The Minpins (1991)
- Revolting Rhymes (1982)
- Dirty Beasts (1983)
- Rhyme Stew (1989)
- Some Time Never: A Fable for Supermen (1948)
- My Uncle Oswald (1979)
collections
- Over to You: Ten Stories of Flyers and Flying (1946)
- Someone Like You (1953)
- Kiss Kiss (1960)
- Twenty-Nine Kisses from Roald Dahl (1969)
- Switch Bitch (1974)
- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More (1977)
- The Best of Roald Dahl (1978)
- Tales of the Unexpected (1979)
- More Tales of the Unexpected (1980)
- The Roald Dahl Omnibus (1986)
- Two Fables (1986)
- Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life: The Country Stories of Roald Dahl (1989)
- The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl (1991)
- The Roald Dahl Treasury (1997)
- The Great Automatic Grammatizator (1998)
- Skin and Other Stories (2000)
- Roald Dahl: Collected Stories (2006)
- The Mildenhall Treasure (1946)
- Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984)
- Going Solo (1986)
- Measles: A Dangerous Illness (1986)
- Memories with Food at Gipsy House (1991)
- Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety (1991)
- My Year (1993)
- 36 Hours (1964)
- Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
- Danny, the Champion of the World (1989)
- The BFG (1989)
- Breaking Point (1989)
- The Witches (1990)
- Four Rooms (1995)
- James and the Giant Peach (1996)
- Matilda (1996)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
- Roald Dahl's Esio Trot (2015)
- The BFG (2016)
- Revolting Rhymes (2016)
- Tom and Jerry: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (2017)
- The Witches (2020)
- Matilda the Musical (2022)
- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023)
- Wonka (2023)
- The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Three More (2024)
- The Twits (2025)
- The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling (1966, unfinished)
- You Only Live Twice (1967)
- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968)
- The Night Digger (1971)
- Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)
- The Honeys (1955)
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (1998)
- Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka (2004)
- The Witches (2008)
- The Golden Ticket (2010)
- James and the Giant Peach (2010)
- Matilda (2010)
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013)
- Fantastic Mr Fox (2016)
- The Witches (2023)
- Bibliography
- Short stories bibliography
- Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories (1983)
- Gipsy House
- Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre
- Roald Dahl Children's Gallery
- Patricia Neal (wife)
- Olivia Dahl (daughter)
- Tessa Dahl (daughter)
- Ophelia Dahl (daughter)
- Lucy Dahl (daughter)
- Sophie Dahl (granddaughter)
- Phoebe Dahl (granddaughter)
- Felicity Dahl (second wife)
- Quentin Blake
- Wade-Dahl-Till valve
- Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse (2020)
- To Olivia (2021)
- Revision controversy