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Author image credit: Brian McDonnell
Book information:
- Literary fiction
- Pub date: January 28, 2025
- ISBN: 978-1-957024-10-3
- Retail price: $20
- Paperback
- 6 x 9
- 370 pages
- Publisher: Korza Books
- Distributed by Ingram
Book description:
American tour guide Joe Newhouse wants nothing more than to reach Venice. Since moving to Munich after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he’s watched his business fail, his wife leave him, and his love for Europe diminish. Now he faces one last ten-day tour with a surly group that doesn’t want to be there. As he leads them through the mythic lands of Europe’s Romantic past, he grows increasingly disturbed by their stories of earlier lives, puzzled by their desire to be with a man who doesn’t arrive, and entangled in an illicit affair that promises to either save him or plunge his tour–and his life–into madness.
Soaked in the Romantic atmosphere and dark deeds of old Europe-as well as the freedoms and hopes of a new era-The Last Grand Tour takes us on a perilous journey through Hitler’s Berchtesgaden, Mozart’s Salzburg, and Mad King Ludwig’s Bavarian fantasyland before reaching its stunning climax in the murky waters of Venice. Along the way, it explores the often-shifting lines between fidelity and freedom, illusion and reality, regret and desire.
100-word synopsis:
All Joe Newhouse wants is reach Venice. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, he’s been guiding Americans through the mythic lands of Europe’s Romantic past. Now, with his marriage crumbling and his business failing, he faces one last ten-day trip with a group that doesn’t want to be there and an alluring woman might save his life or tip it toward madness. An adventure story set among Europe’s most beautiful landscapes, The Last Grand Tour is filled with romance, conflict, and the revelations of secrets that turn a simple tour into a web of relationships, betrayals, and kindled desire.
About the author:
Michael N. McGregor spent over a decade guiding Americans through Europe, both with Rick Steves and with his own company, Halcyon Tours. One of the many people he met in his travels was the poet Robert Lax, who became the subject of his first book, Pure Act. Pure Act was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and named one of the top 10 books in American Studies for libraries by the Association of University Presses. A former professor of creative writing, McGregor lives in Seattle, where he hosts the Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation series and runs the website WritingtheNorthwest.com.
[See below for a 50-word bio and a full bio. For more general information, click on A Little About Me…]
Contact Information:
- Media inquiries, event bookings, and rights: mcgregorman@hotmail.com
- Review copies: korzabooks@gmail.com
Links to social media:
What others are saying about The Last Grand Tour:
“With The Last Grand Tour, Michael N. McGregor has delivered a thoroughly absorbing novel. His prose has a kind of hypnotic, cleansing melancholy, and his emotional intelligence is formidable. I suspect anyone who loves travel or travelers will encounter some version of themselves within these pages. Bravo.”
–Tom Bissell, author of The Disaster Artist, Extra Lives, and God Lives in St. Petersburg
“The Last Grand Tour is an unforgettable tale full of hope, love, and loss, with enough European flair to satisfy your wanderlust. I loved every minute of it.”
–Kate Shelton, author of The Novel Killings
“The Last Grand Tour is a frequently funny, often melancholy, always deeply romantic voyage through the history-haunted landscapes of Western Europe, accompanied by a busload of unforgettable characters. In the hands of tour guide extraordinaire Michael N. McGregor, it becomes a journey of the heart, filled with longing and brio.”
–Jon Raymond, author of Denial and acclaimed screenwriter of “First Cow,” “Meek’s Cutoff,” and HBO’s “Mildred Pierce.”
Upcoming appearances (all dates are 2025):
- January 28–Powell’s Books, Portland, OR
- January 30–Edmonds Bookshop, Edmonds, WA
- February 11–Third Place Books Ravenna, Seattle, WA
50-word bio:
Michael N. McGregor is an author, journalist, editor, and former professor whose first novel, The Last Grand Tour, will be published by Korza Books in January 2025. His previous book, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and other prizes.
Full bio:
Michael N. McGregor is an author, journalist, editor, conversation series host, and former professor of creative writing whose first novel, The Last Grand Tour, will be published by Korza Books in January 2025. His previous book, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax, was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award and several other prizes. The Association of University Presses named Pure Act one of its 10 best books in American Literature for libraries, the New York Times Book Review called it “vivid and engaging,” and the Oregonian described it as “deeply satisfying.”
Monkfish Publishing will release his third book, An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life, in May 2025.
Before earning an MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York, McGregor received a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon. He spent his college summers as a Forest Service firefighter on the slopes of Mt. Hood and his post-college years interviewing and writing about people in extreme poverty in Asia. On an eight-month trip through Europe and the Middle East, he met the poet Robert Lax on a Greek island and the two became close friends. Around the same time, McGregor came to know the travel guru and guidebook author Rick Steves, who hired him to lead tours through Europe.
McGregor spent the next decade traveling up to six months a year while guiding groups for both Steves’ company and his own Halcyon Tours. Halcyon specialized in small group tours to places on the fringes of Europe, such as Scotland, Greece and Turkey, and, in the years just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Eastern Europe. McGregor was one of the first guides to lead Americans through the newly-freed lands of the former Soviet Union.
Over the past three decades, McGregor has taught writing at Columbia University, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and Portland State University, where he was a professor for 17 years and helped found the MFA in Creative Writing program. During his years at PSU, he received numerous Outstanding Teacher awards and served as director of creative writing.
McGregor has published over 300 stories, essays, and articles in magazines, newspapers, and journals, including Tin House, StoryQuarterly, Poetry, Orion, Image, Poets & Writers, The Seattle Review, and Notre Dame Magazine. His writings have earned him notable essay designations in Best American Essays, special mention in the Pushcart Prizes, an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship, a Literary Award Grant from the Illinois Arts Council, and the Daniel Curley Award for Best Short Fiction. In addition to speaking at conferences, colleges, and bookstores throughout the United States, he has been a guest on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” and Oregon Public Broadcasting’s “Think Out Loud.” He has also recorded podcast segments for Poetry magazine, City Lights Bookstore, Late Night Library, and Urban Roots.
As a journalist, McGregor spent over a decade writing about theater for the Oregonian and the Seattle Weekly and served as editor-in-chief of three magazines. In 2018, he was selected to be as one of eight international writers-in-residence at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, and in 2022, he was named the Oregon Historical Society’s Donald J. Sterling Jr. Senior Research Fellow in Pacific Northwest History.
He resides now in Seattle, where he runs the website WritingtheNorthwest.com and serves as host and emcee for the Cascadia Art Museum’s Writers-in-Conversation series.
Send questions and queries to: mcgregorman@hotmail.com