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The Last Man Standing

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

GQ (Italy) called Davide Longo, "the most talented and intense Italian novelist of his generation." In this dystopian, post-apocalyptic literary novel, Italy is on the brink of collapse: borders are closed, banks are refusing to distribute money to their clients, the postal service is shuttered, and food supplies are running short. Armed gangs of drug-fueled youth rampage through the countryside as the nation descends into chaos.

Leonardo was once a famous writer and professor before a sex scandal ended his marriage and his career. With society collapsing around them, his ex-wife leaves their daughter and son in his care as she sets off in search of her new husband, who is missing. Ultimately, Leonardo is forced to evacuate and take his children to safety, but to do so he will have to summon a quality he has never exhibited before: courage.

From the Hardcover edition.

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    • Library Journal

      October 15, 2013

      In Italian author Longo's apocalyptic story, Italy, shut off from the rest of Europe, has collapsed into anarchy. In the midst of the chaos, disgraced ex-professor Leonardo Chiri is trying to survive by himself on a family farm when his ex-wife visits to drop off Alberto, her troubled ten-year-old stepson, and Lucia, their 17-year-old daughter, claiming she will send for them once she's out of the country. Though charged with protecting the two adolescents, Leonardo seems strangely passive as teenage hoodlums begin to rob, rape, and murder innocent villagers. Overly cautious, at worst a coward, Leonardo is finally forced to hit the road with the kids. Their grim struggle for survival leads them into yet darker depredation, a world of such savagery that no one will survive untouched. VERDICT Longo's dystopian world--difficult to take at times--is evoked through language as beautiful as the winter landscape of northern Italy is barren. A wealth of rich imagery carries the reader through scenes of torture and youthful atrocities along a landscape as stark as that of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But those who stick with Leonardo will be rewarded. [For more Italian fiction in translation, see reviewer David Keymer's roundup of Italian crime novels on p. 90.--Ed.]--Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson

      Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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