I liked this book very much, in fact I was disappointed when it finished. I love Katoomba (where the story is set), so i could picture with affection all the places mentioned. My great aunt was a similar sort of character to Ava Langdon, so that also provided appeal, coupled with my own decline into aged craziness. Moreover, the subject of family relationships - and what goes wrong with them - is a constant theme in my reading. Actually, that's where the book fell down a little, I think. Why did the Vladimir come looking for his mother? What was really happening between mother and son? I don't need answers, but I would have loved more exploration - even maybe flashbacks to years gone by? ( )

This fictional biography is based on the last days of novelist Eve Langley. Ava Langdon is an outcast living alone in a small hut near the woods. She is a writer who wears men’s clothes, like to carry a machete and live her life as an isolated eccentric.
Mark has done an amazing job with this book. This intriguing story is both touching and humorous.
Told from Ava’s point of view as she goes about her day in her judgmental Katoomba town. The book is divided into five chapters, taking place at different times in the day. The layout of this book was perfect as it moves between memories, interactions and the different perspectives of the towns people Ava comes across during her daily travels.
Fictional biographies can sometimes get weighed down by history and facts. What Mark has done with this book is bring the warmth of Ava to the forefront and it really pays off. I couldn’t put this book down.
Beautiful, funny, touching and warm. The Last Days Of Ava Langdon is a must read.

Written by Geramie Kate Barker
https://gemsbooknook.wordpress.com ( )

The Last Days of Ava Langdon is an affectionate homage to the Australian author Eve Langley, (1904-1974), but it’s also an homage to eccentricity.

In this generous and respectful fictionalisation of Langley’s life, there’s a boy who lives near Ava who taunts her each time he sees her. He calls her a nut case. That might also be the judgement of the Blue Mountains town where Ava lives in a hut on its outskirts, but author Mark O’Flynn contests that perspective with a portrait of a rich inner life, even if that life may have been compromised by the rudimentary and sometimes disastrous mental health services of the twentieth century.

The real Eve Langley was a significant Australian novelist and poet but little is known about her. She was born into poverty but used her experiences as an itinerant agricultural labourer as material for her most famous novel The Pea Pickers (1942). Today she might be a member of the LGBTI community, but in the twentieth century her cross-dressing and what may have been intersex confusion was interpreted differently : during her sojourn in New Zealand she married and had three children, but she spent seven years in a mental health institution there. Did Langley’s husband use her gender identity issues to commit her, or was it because of the conflict between her passion for writing and the domestic demands of being a twentieth century wife and mother?

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/06/09/the-last-days-of-ava-langdon-by-mark-oflynn/ ( )