In the Country of Last Things

by Paul Auster

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140097054
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/02/1988
Series:	Contemporary American Fiction Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.08(w) x 7.69(h) x 0.54(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Paul Auster was the bestselling author of 4 3 2 1, Sunset Park, The Book of Illusions, Moon Palace, and The New York Trilogy, among many other works. In 2006, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for Literature. His other honors include the Prix Médicis étranger for Leviathan, the Independent Spirit Award for the screenplay of Smoke, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Burning Boy, and the Carlos Fuentes Prize for his body of work. His novel 4 3 2 1 was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His work has been translated into more than forty languages. Paul Auster died in 2024.

Hometown:

Brooklyn, New York

Date of Birth:

February 3, 1947

Place of Birth:

Newark, New Jersey

Education:

B.A., M.A., Columbia University, 1970

What People are Saying About This

E.G. Sandvick

The subject and tone of this novel are reminiscent of Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz and Tim O'Brien's The Nuclear Age; the style and emphasis on philosophical statement will challenge the reader. . . . The author places his protagonist in ethical dilemmas that challenge the usual moral order. The epistolary form poses some limitations: little action, abrupt transitions between episodes, and little character development; nevertheless, a well-written novel, which avoids the usual stereotypes of the postnuclear destruction novel and presents a darker-than-usual moral vision.

Lawrence Norfolk

The business of scratching around in the wreckage, be it of the metropolis, of language or of consciousness, always runs the risk of being boring. Auster declines the risk and has tediousness forced on him anyway. The incidents and objects he describes betray an increasing desire to entertain the reader, but this is matched by their increasing insubstantiality; these 'last things' evoke no pathos, and, trading heavily on the Grand Guignol fascination which apocalyptic visions tend to elicit, the novel stands somewhere between Protect and Survive and Being and Nothingness

Editorial Reviews

Powerful, enigmatic, imaginative, and handled with artistry . . . One of the better modern attempts at describing hell.”—The Washington Post Book World
 
“Reminiscent in many ways of Orwell’s 1984 . . . Auster creates within these pages a place so real it could be our own country, perhaps our very own city.”—The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Praise for Paul Auster:

“One of the great American prose stylists of our time.”—New York Times

“Auster really does possess the wand of the enchanter.”—New York Review of Books

“One of the great writers of our time.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Contemporary American writing at its best.”—New York Times Book Review, on Invisible

“A literary original who is perfecting a hybrid genre of his own.”—Wall Street Journal

From the Publisher

Powerful, original, imaginative... .

Washington Post

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.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In a book-length letter home, Anna Blume reports that her search for a long-lost brother has brought her to a vast, unnamed city that is undergoing a catastrophic economic decline. Buildings collapse daily, driving huge numbers of citizens into the streets, where they starve or die of exposureif they aren't murdered by other vagrants first. Government forces haul away the bodies, and licensed scavengers collect trash and precious human waste. Weird cults form around the most popular methods of suicide. Anna tries to help, but the charity group she joins quickly runs out of supplies and has to close its doors. A number of post-apocalyptic novels have been published recently; Auster's, one of the best, is distinguished by an uncanny grasp of the day-to-day realities of homelessness. This is a scary but highly relevant book. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Marymount Univ. Lib., Los Angeles

Library Journal