Synopses & Reviews
An incredible debut and National Book Award-nominated novel?it?s ?Memento meets Augie March. Didion meets Hitchcock? (Esquire). It is August 15, 1953, the day of a boisterous and unwieldy street carnival in Elephant Park, an Italian immigrant enclave in northern Ohio. As the festivities reach a riotous pitch and billow into the streets, five members of the community labor under the weight of a terrible secret. As these floundering souls collide, one day of calamity and consequence sheds light on a half century of their struggles, their follies, and their pride. And slowly, it becomes clear that buried deep in the hearts of these five exquisitely drawn characters is the long-silenced truth about the crime that twisted each of their worlds.
Cast against the racial, spiritual, and moral tension that has given rise to modern America, this first novel exhumes the secrets lurking in the darkened crevices of the soul of our country. Inventive, explosive, and revelatory, The End introduces Salvatore Scibona as an important new voice in American fiction.
Review
"An incredible debut and National Book Award-nominated novel — it's Memento meets Augie March. Didion meets Hitchcock." Esquire
Synopsis
A brilliant debut novel about a single day in 1953 as lived by six people at an Ohio carnival.
A small, incongruous man receives an excruciating piece of news. His son has died in a POW camp in Korea. It is August 15, 1953, the day of a tumultuous street carnival in Elephant Park, an Italian immigrant enclave in Ohio. The man is Rocco LaGrassa, and his many years of dogged labor, paternal devotion, and steadfast Christian faith are about to come to a crashing end. He is the first of many exquisitely drawn characters we meet that day, each of whom will come to their own conclusion.
The End follows an elderly abortionist, an enigmatic drapery seamstress, a teenage boy, a jeweler — dramatically into the heart of a crime that will twist all their lives. Against a background of immigration, broken loyalties, and racial hostility, we at last return to August 15, 1953, and see everything Rocco saw — and vastly more — through the eyes of various characters in the crowds.
The End is the unforgettable debut of a singular new American novelist.
Synopsis
An incredible debut and National Book Award-nominated novel?it's ?Memento meets Augie March. Didion meets Hitchcock? (Esquire). By the author of The Volunteer. It is August 15, 1953, the day of a boisterous and unwieldy street carnival in Elephant Park, an Italian immigrant enclave in northern Ohio. As the festivities reach a riotous pitch and billow into the streets, five members of the community labor under the weight of a terrible secret. As these floundering souls collide, one day of calamity and consequence sheds light on a half century of their struggles, their follies, and their pride. And slowly, it becomes clear that buried deep in the hearts of these five exquisitely drawn characters is the long-silenced truth about the crime that twisted each of their worlds.
Cast against the racial, spiritual, and moral tension that has given rise to modern America, this first novel exhumes the secrets lurking in the darkened crevices of the soul of our country. Inventive, explosive, and revelatory, The End introduces Salvatore Scibona as an important new voice in American fiction.
Synopsis
Scibona follows an elderly abortionist, an enigmatic drapery seamstress, a teenage boy, and a jeweler into the heart of a crime that will twist all their lives — set against a background of immigration, broken loyalties, and racial hostility in 1953.
About the Author
Salvatore Scibona's first book, The End, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and winner of the Young Lions Fiction Award from the New York Public Library and the Norman Mailer Cape Cod Award for Exceptional Writing.