Publishers Weekly
10/30/2023
Sammartino’s acerbic debut revolves around a troubled father and son in a desolate part of Phoenix, Ariz. David Rizzo’s 30-year-old son, Nick, who’s on the rebound from a heroin overdose, agrees to help his father turn around his latest failing business, a gun shop in an industrial wasteland. They devise a marketing scheme involving a pledge to donate a percentage of the store’s proceeds to a drug rehab center, with Nick acting as the campaign’s poster boy. It works, until a school shooting dampens interest in gun sales. Sammartino spices up the shaggy dog narrative with a transcript of the Rizzos’ various failed attempts to make a TV commercial (“NICK remains in front of wall, but his smile fades, replaced by a glazed stare. He fidgets”) and social media posts Nick writes for a hospice in an effort to raise more cash (“Dying is hard. We make it easy”; “never die alone again #unity”). Sammartino takes aim at some broad and predictable targets as he traces the Rizzos’ downward slide through a collapsing America. Still, his characters’ mutual affection feels genuine. This satisfies on multiple levels. Agent: Michael Mungiello, InkWell Management. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Sammartino is extraordinarily good at balancing the farcical nature of contemporary America with the complex humanity of his characters. He’s also 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.”—Dan Chaon, The New York Times Book Review
“A wholly American novel about salvation.”—Matthew Minicucci, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Raucous, irreverent... Last Acts pays tribute to gallows humorists like Sam Lipsyte, Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Tropper, and Jonathan Franzen."—Max Gray, Chicago Review of Books
"The events of this satirical début novel are catalyzed by a nearly fatal opioid overdose suffered by the estranged son of a gun-store proprietor. Together, the father and son embark on a journey across the Arizona desert.”—The New Yorker
"There is so much grim humor in Sammartino's debut novel, such a keen eye for the details of rage and heartbreak, such empathy for humiliation, that we enjoy the ride, wincing and laughing along the way. The slings and arrows of his hero's outrageous fortune unfold always with a fine satirist's eye and ear. In Rizzo, we have a uniquely contemporary loser for the ages."—Claude Peck, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"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 doesn’t stop him from writing about it with genuine, goofy love."—George Saunders, author of Liberation Day
"Sammartino’s promising debut offers keen insights into gun violence, drug addiction, and capitalism along with a skewering satire of social media... A sobering tale full of heart.”—Booklist
"Acerbic... [Last Acts] satisfies on multiple levels."—Publisher's Weekly
"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
"It's hard to believe Last Acts is a first novel. Sammartino's brilliance and originality shine out from every page of this masterful debut."—Jenny Offill, author of Weather
"An astonishing baller of a book so pitch perfect in voice (Tony Soprano meets Samuel Beckett) I predict it'll be the sleeper hit of the year... Yes it's a send up of American masculinity circling the drain. Or is it? This funny as hell tale moved me to the core. Unputdownable."—Mary Karr, author of Lit and Tropic of Squalor
"A sad, hilarious father-son redemption story that touches every American third rail: guns, drugs, religion... Spot-on about the dark societal carnival we’re all doing our best to survive.”—Jonathan Dee, author of Sugar Street
"Last Acts is an astonishingly strong debut, big hearted and hilarious... Rizzo is a singular and great American character: a tender-but-obtuse father, a confidence man with no confidence, a charismatic loser with a voice you can’t help but love."—Dana Spiotta, author of Wayward
Kirkus Reviews
2023-11-18
This darkly comic debut tells of how a father and son try to cope with misfortune.
David Rizzo is almost 60 when his 30-year-old son, Nick, ODs, flatlines, and then is revived. Driving to the hospital makes the father miss an appointment to sell his struggling gun store, which is located in a low-traffic “commercial wasteland” in Phoenix, Arizona. His car is towed because he parked in a space reserved for medical staff. His credit card is declined at the rehab where he planned to leave Nick. Such is life for the hapless Rizzo, whose chief pleasure is TV, especially the ads. But wait! There’s more! Business actually improves at the gun shop after Nick makes an ad offering to donate a portion of every sale to a local rehab center. Then Rizzo sells an assault rifle to a young man who subsequently fires 200 rounds in a local high school. He doesn’t kill or injure anyone, but since he was underage, Rizzo goes to prison. He also largely disappears from the book. Nick shows he’s his father’s son through a string of bad business and personal decisions, such as partnering with a local entrepreneur who mixes poor judgment and fraud and leaving a former junkie pal in charge of the gun store. Sammartino takes clever shots at marketing, philanthropy, business ethics, and gun violence—although it’s risky to exploit school shootings, even in black comedy. It’s also questionable to sideline Rizzo after he’s been the narrative’s focus and most developed character for 100 pages. But in this ode to losers, one could do worse than relying on Nick, whose main traits are inadequacy and remorse. Sammartino does have a knack for edgy writing, and occasionally he pauses to observe the world in well-crafted patches of staccato, propulsive prose.
An uneven first outing but brimming with promise.
