The Last Estate by Conor Bowman is a rare miniature treat.  The book, little over 160 pages, contains multitudes.  It focuses on the story of Christian Aragon, the last surviving son of a Provençal vintner.  He is nearly seventeen in 1920 and the shadow of his older brother Eugene, killed in the Great War, looms large.  The hot summer has Christian conflicted by the opposing forces of lust and virtue, the former represented by the young geography teacher Miss Playben and the latter by the cantankerous Jesuit priest, Father Leterrier.  Fr. Leterrier tortures his students with interminable lectures about Holy … Continue reading The Last Estate by Conor Bowman