Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino

Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOLLINGER EVERYMAN WODEHOUSE PRIZE FOR COMIC FICTION

'A rollicking satire on contemporary America' James Naughtie

'A magnificently humane book about losers' Irish Times

'Taut, energetic, tender' George Saunders

'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

'What a taut, energetic, tender, and wholly original debut novel Alexander Sammartino has writtenHe 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

Alexander Sammartino was born in Rhode Island and grew up in Arizona. He majored in philosophy and English at Syracuse University, which is also where he received his MFA in fiction. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and cat. Last Acts is his first novel.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781805337829
ISBN 10	1805337823
Title	Last Acts
Author	Alexander Sammartino
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Pushkin Press
Year published	2025-04-10
Number of pages	224
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.