The Last Woman

by

John Willingham

The last resident of a bypassed Texas town reflects on her tumultuous and tragic 80 years of life.

The Last Woman by John Willingham is the well-told story of Catherine “Frenchy” McCain/McCormick, the last woman, and eventually, the last resident of Tascosa, a small Texas town bypassed by the railroad and doomed to die in obscurity. Catherine, the daughter of an Irish father and Cajun French mother, left her hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at a young age after being falsely accused of making advances toward the pedophilic priest at her Catholic school. She makes her way to a small Arkansas town where she is hired as a schoolteacher, but when she is forced to mortally defend herself from the vicious attack of a man with connections, she and a friend end up on the run, with the man’s evil older brother hot on their trail and out for revenge. 

Catherine is a different sort of heroine from those usually found in similar melodramas; she’s plain and even more plain-spoken, and quite capable of taking care of herself. Besides never seeming to catch a break in her life –her mother was cold-hearted and a drunk, and she’s repeatedly targeted by men in a position of esteem for mistreatment—she is living in a time in history when women were viewed as property rather than individuals with rights. She is joined in her adventures by Mamie Jackson, who saves her from a certain hanging in Arkansas, but it is her childhood friend, Gabe Celiot, who is my favorite character in the book. 

The story unfolds like a premium soap opera, and I was hooked from the start. Present-day (1930s/40s) Catherine, still living in Tascosa, recounts her story as she looks back over her lifetime, reminiscing about people she knew, and worries will now be forgotten once she’s gone. The descriptions of the settings are so vivid and full of life themselves that the whole effect is almost cinematic. I was there with Catherine every step of the way. 

I recommend THE LAST WOMAN to readers of historical fiction.

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