In the Country of Last Things
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5.0 • 6 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author Paul Auster, a dystopian, post-apocalyptic novel “reminiscent in many ways of Orwell’s 1984” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution).
“Powerful, original, imaginative, and handled with artistry . . . One of the better modern attempts at describing hell.”—The Washington Post Book World
In a distant and unsettling future, the masses are homeless, theft is so rampant it is no longer a crime, and death—by arranging either a suicide or an assassination—is the only way out.
It is in these circumstances that Anna Blume begins her search for her brother, a one-time journalist who may or may not still be alive, in an unnamed city whose destitute inhabitants dig through garbage and elusive government provides nothing but corruption. In her struggle to survive, Anna becomes a scavenger of objects from the past to sell for food and shelter. But she will also find friendship—and even love—in this devastated world.
In the Country of Last Things is a tour de force that reaffirms Paul Auster’s stature as one of the most accomplished and singular talents of his generation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Imagine an American city in the near future, populated almost wholly by street dwellers, squatters in ruined buildings, scavengers for subsistence. Suicide clubs offer interesting ways to die, for a fee, but the rich have fled with their jewels, and those who are left survive on what little cash trade-in centers will give them for the day's pickings. This enthralling, dreamlike fable about a peculiarly recognizable society, now in the throes of entropy, focuses on the plight of a young woman, Anna Blume. Anna has memories of a gentler life, but comes to the city in a "charity ship'' to hunt for her missing brother. She first finds shelter with a madman and his wife and later experiences a brief idyll with a writer, Samuel Farr.Together they live in the deteriorating splendor of the marbled public library. Promise is ultimately rekindled when the survivors consider taking to the road as magiciansan action implying that art and illusion can save. Auster, an accomplished stylist, creates a tone that deftly combines matter-of-factness and estrangement. The eerie quality is heightened by the device of a narrator who learns everything from Anna's journal. Auster's The New York Trilogy is soon to be reissued in Penguin paperback.
Customer Reviews
Heartbreaking
My favorite Auster book, this is an apocalyptic love story about hope, futility and what a city can do to a person.