In The Last Enchantments, an engagingly written novel about a young American man coming of age at Oxford, Charles Finch departs from his usual historical mysteries (A Beautiful Blue Death, etc.). Instead, he sets the scene in a place where the past and present are in a constant state of fusion. Twenty-five-year-old Will Baker has, to all appearances, an enviable life: a career in politics he enjoys, a wealthy and sympathetic girlfriend and a glamorous lifestyle in New York City, where going out to clubs at midnight is seen as getting an early start. Despite having what most Americans would equate to success, however, Will is restless and desirous of a change.
The years of his life Will recalls most fondly are those spent earning an undergraduate degree at Yale; on that basis, he applies to Oxford to study English literature. Coming from a family of deeply embedded privilege, where he "grew up conflating stylistic and moral choices," Will comes to realize most of his own choices have not been from the heart. In the course of the novel, and primarily via the intense romance and friendship he experiences at Oxford, Will grapples with the consequences of his upbringing and begins, painfully, to arrive at the truth about himself.
The host of colorful characters Will meets includes Tim, the upper-class British student who becomes his best friend at college (despite Will's private observation that "there is nobody as hopelessly vulgar as a British aristocrat"); Anil, an Indian wannabe-rapper; Ella, an Asian-American scholarship student grimly determined to succeed; and the beautiful and unattainable Sophie, who becomes Will's obsession for the duration of his time at Oxford.
While relationships and coming to terms with adulthood are the focus of The Last Enchantments, it is also especially evocative of Oxford. Readers who are curious about the parties, about the sports--particularly the punting, which forms the backdrop for many social situations--and the classes will find much to satisfy them. Above all, however, Will's story is about the space that perpetually separates the interim pleasures of college and the vagaries of adult life--and it is within that space that he must ultimately find some semblance of peace. --Ilana Teitelbaum
Shelf Talker: Finch sidesteps from his Victorian-era mystery series with an engaging contemporary coming-of-age novel set at Oxford.