The Last Life

Format:	Paperback 384 pages

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Synopsis

"The Last Life" tells the story of the teenage Sagesse LaBasse and her family, French Algerian emigrants haunted by their history, brought to the brink of destruction by a single reckless act. Observed with a fifteen-year-old's ruthless regard for truth, it is a novel about secrets and ghosts, love and honour, the stories we tell ourselves and the lies to which we cling. It is a work of stunning emotional power, written in prose of matchless iridescence and grace. "'Powerful, Gripping, dark at its heart, this is an almost faultless novel" - "Evening Standard". "A joy to read. Messud's prose is lush, incantatory ...her observations are funnily astute, brimming with wit and imagination ...as elegant and precise as geometry" - "Independent". "Mesmerizing ...Ms Messud has written a large and resonant novel that is as artful as it is affecting" - "New York Times".

Book details

Published
09/06/2000

Publisher
Picador

ISBN
9780330375641

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

When Sagesse LaBasse's grandfather shot at the teenagers larking about in the swimming pool of his beloved Hotel Bellevue, he sparked a series of events that radically altered the life of his granddaughter. Growing up in Algiers in a Franco-Algerian family with an American mother who yearns to be French, Sagesse is aware of the subtleties of race and nationality that pervade the three cultures she is heir to. The LaBasse family, with their mentally retarded son, obsessive grandfather and bridge-playing mother, has a wonderfully Middle-Eastern flavour but Sagesse herself, narrator of this poignant, skilful novel, is a universal teenager: truthful, tactless, compassionate - a totally convincing character in an intriguing tale. (Kirkus UK)