Description

National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree

‘A taut, energetic, tender and wholly original debut’ George Saunders

‘Sammartino’s brilliance and originality shine out from every page’ Jenny Offill

David Rizzo has been waiting for a sign from above. Owner of a failing firearms store in a sun-bleached corner of Arizona, he’s drowning in debt and desperate for a word from his estranged adult son, Nick. When Nick is brought back from a near-fatal heroin overdose, Rizzo believes there’s reason for hope: if Nick can return from the dead, so can his business.

The flailing father-son duo embark on a marketing ploy to create the most compelling television commercial for a gun emporium the world has ever seen. But their relationship is fragile, mired in things left unsaid, and when Rizzo unknowingly supplies the weapon in a school shooting, a crash of hijinks, hope and disaster ensues.

MORE PRAISE FOR LAST ACTS:

‘A magnificent sentence writer’ New York Times Book Review

‘Precise, funny and will break your heart all at once’ Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

‘An astonishing baller of a book so pitch perfect in voice (Tony Soprano meets Samuel Beckett)’ Marry Karr

‘Big hearted and hilarious’ Dana Spiotta

‘Raucous, irreverent’ Chicago Review of Books

Publisher Review

'What a taut, energetic, tender, and wholly original debut novel Alexander Sammartino has written. He knows something deep about the dark heart of America that somehow doesnt stop him from writing about it with genuine, goofy love.' - George Saunders, author of Liberation Day 'Its hard to believe Last Acts is a first novel. Sammartinos brilliance and originality shine out from every page of this masterful debut.' - Jenny Offill, author of Weather 'A magnificent sentence writer, with a gift for pulling poetry out of an American vernacular that recalls the early work of George Saunders... While many novelists are struggling to figure out how best to address the state of the nation -- centerless, ridiculous and terrifying, doomed yet trivial, dire yet unheroic -- Sammartino seems to have cracked the code' - New York Times Book Review 'Last Acts announces a brilliant new voice. Sammartino is precise, funny and will break your heart all at once. Not to be missed.' - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain-Gang All-Stars 'Raucous, irreverent... Last Acts pays tribute to gallows humorists like Sam Lipsyte, Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Tropper, and Jonathan Franzen.' - Chicago Review of Books