Hello Friends.
As we reach the final chapter of 2024, and as I close in on the final chapter of Jane, the fourth book of The Austen Chronicles, I have rightfully been thinking about finales. I know how my book ends. I even know the final line. Well, right now, I am really sure I know the final line, it could change. To be fair, I knew the final line of the previous three books pretty early on, and they didn’t change, but never say never and all of that. I am sure everyone reading this has some favorite final lines. Some of them are so good they end up on the author’s tombstone.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” adorns the graves of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Hard to argue with that choice for the book or the tombstone. It is really, really special. That book doesn’t have any real chapters, so it makes it hard to know what the final chapter really is. In theory, the finale is Nick wrapping up Gatsby’s affairs before he returns home to the hardware company. No one is putting that on a tombstone. Still, it is important. We can’t get to that final line without it.
Final words are often conflated with final chapters. Final lines are the mic drops, but the final chapters do the work. Before the character can drive off into the sunset, or sunrise, or a new life, or, in Nick Carraway’s case, back to his old life selling hardware in the Midwest while ignoring his untreated PTSD from The Great War and the fact that he is likely in love with Jay Gatsby or Jordan Baker, or both. It could totally be both. Also, does anyone but me think that Jordan Baker is the most interesting character in that book? What’s her story? She seems like she has a lot of secrets and Daisy might be in on them. Hmmm…The Fitzgerald Chronicles does have a nice ring to it. There are a ton of characters running through his books that have stories to tell.
Anyway, the final chapter does the work that allows the characters to continue after you close the book. It doesn’t work as a summary of what you’ve just read, it acts as a culmination of events. The final chapter doesn’t reset the pieces on the checkerboard, but it puts them on a totally different game board where they will go do something else. How about a nice game of chess? Sure, sometimes the main character dies, but that event has an aftermath. Few books are just about one character who dies at the end. There are some. They are, for the most part, short stories, and you are shouting them at my newsletter right now. I know. The exceptions are real. For the most part though, there are other people around who have to pick up the pieces and move on just as we, the readers, must do the same thing.
I know that a lot of people don’t like unresolved endings, but I think that is just a lack of imagination. When we think of it, all endings are unresolved. Just because you win the lottery, or get married, or get elected, or get the dream job, or finally go to jail for burying someone beneath your floorboards, something happens next. Something always happens next. There is another sunrise, and final chapters give our readers the chance to imagine what those characters are doing.
I’m not suggesting that I wish there were a book called 1985 where I can discover if Julia is faking, or if that bullet in the back of Winston’s head is literal or figurative. We don't need A Return to Linden Hills to find out if our heroes go to jail for letting everything burn down. We don’t need Still Proud and Still Prejudice to find out if Lizzy and Darcy have kids and if they are book nerds or not. We can, because of the final chapters that Orwell, Naylor, and Austen gave us, decide on our own. That bullet is real. They don’t go to jail. Of course, the little Darcies are huge book nerds and odds are, one of them is a bit of a headstrong jerk. Look at her parents. How could she not be?
Good final chapters should be, in my opinion, doors, not walls. Except in The Cask of Amontillado. That is actually a wall, and that is a short story as well. Even still, after that, there are survivors who have to live with what they’ve done. Likely, if we believe in other stories by Poe, they will feel guilty and go mad. Even in that madness, there is a continued story.
It is true that by the time you get the next newsletter, I will have written Jane’s final chapter. I know how I will have her pop back up in future books, because, spoiler alert, Jane doesn’t die at the end. Still, it is my hope that when you finally read her eponymous book, and when you close the cover, you will envision what she does next by walking through that door with her.
Notes From My Bookshelf
The first “book” I ever wrote was just a collection of short stories about a young woman called Alexandria Krumm. She was, and is, very important to me. She was the first character I created with whom I felt connected. In fact, my left arm features a tattoo of the hat she wears. We are connected forever. She was a poet. Her hero was Michael Stipe of the band R.E.M. Every single story title came from R.E.M lyrics. After I wrote the third story, I wrote them a letter, a real letter with paper, and sent it with a stamp, asking them for permission to use their lyrics. Their lawyer responded. I still have that letter. So, when I saw that there was a new book out about R.E.M. I knew I had to read it. It is called The Name of This Band is R.E.M., which is something Stipe said during every single live show they did. If you are not a fan of this band, I do think this book will make you one. If you are a fan, well, you’ve likely already read it.
Amy Sarig King (who cleverly writes her YA books under the name A.S. King) put out a middle-reader book about book banning called Attack of the Black Rectangles. The book is “set” in a dystopia, but we are left feeling that it isn’t really any different from our world. It is infuriating for all the reasons you would think it would be.
Notes From My Keyboard
I am going to miss Jane Fairfax. It seems strange to think that I will miss her because I can close my eyes and talk to her anytime I want, but I will miss this particular journey. I am very proud of her. She has come so far. While most of you won’t be able to read her story for another 20 months, I hope it will be worth the wait. I’ve been waiting my whole life to tell these stories, and they seem to be coming just in time.
Thanks for being a subscriber,
ARF
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