THE LAST MAN STANDING

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The Last Man Standing, Davide Longo, MacLehose Press, (translated from Italian by Silvester Mazzarella), 2013, 256 pp

This month I had the pleasure of reading and reviewing this post-apocalyptic novel by Italian author Davide Longo. Interesting that I read it between two other books set in Italy, Daughter of Silence by Morris L West (published in 1961) and The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian (published in 2013 and to be reviewed here on this blog in the next few days.) Reading a book by an author who actually lives there was a fitting antidote to what I found lacking in the other two novels. Reading a post-apocalyptic story set somewhere besides the United States gave me a fascinating look at the different ways a societal breakdown could affect a different culture.

My review of The Last Man Standing was written for BookBrowse, so I am under an agreement to them to direct readers of this blog to their site to peruse the review. Normally you would need to be a subscriber to read it but from today until Sunday, December 8, you can read it on the homepage as part of the Editor's Choice feature.

My review begins thus:

In The Last Man Standing, Italian author Davide Longo's first novel to be translated into English, a double apocalypse transforms a literary author into a hero when his country deteriorates into anarchy after an economic collapse. Leonardo has trashed his career and his family and retreated to the village of his birth. As Italy descends into chaos with fuel, food, and services getting more scarce month by month, he sits in a room full of thousands of books waiting for things to improve...

 

Read the rest here.

(The Last Man Standing is available in hardcover and ebook by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)