The Last One Home: A Novel - Hardcover

Appollo, Annette

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060192089 ISBN 13: 9780060192082

Publisher: Harpercollins, 1999

Synopsis

Years after graduating from high school in her small Pennsylvania coal-mining town, Gia returns to home to care for her dying uncle, sparking a reunion with three other friends that forces all of them to come to terms with old conflicts and feelings

About this title

About the Author

Annette Appollo was a successful attorney before leaving law to pursue a rich personal life. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

Reviews

Gia Scarpino, a middle-aged lawyer, returns to the Pennsylvania coal town of her childhood to see her dying Uncle Tony, who raised her. During her weeklong visit, Gia catches up with her high school friends: Willie, her onetime sweetheart, now a handsome Jesuit priest; Yozo, a wise-cracking entrepreneur; and Barbara, an alcoholic trapped in a loveless marriage. As Tony fades, Gia and friends reminisce and revisit the hangouts of their youth. Willie must wrestle with his conscience and the demands of his vocation when he realizes that he has never stopped loving Gia. Meanwhile, as Gia comes to terms with losing Uncle Tony, her aunts, Tony's sisters, must come to terms with her. Everyone must come to terms with Tony's vague Mafia connections, and readers must reconcile to a bevy of sideswipes at the church, including nuns who beat children and a priest who has sex in a graveyard. Appollo's first novel aspires at once to pathos, psychology, ethnography and political argument: it seeks to move readers with Gia's troubles, explain and explore the folkways of an Italian-American family, reflect lyrically on the passage of the time and the meanings of death, and to attack organized religion. But the subplots and meanings get in one another's way, and no single character emerges with a rich personal history. An improbable happy ending can't save it.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A first novel that tries but fails to invest a story of high-school friendshipsand love revisitedwith meaning and emotion. When high-flying lawyer Gia Scarpino, now in her late 50s, learns that Tony, the Italian-American uncle who raised her, is dying, she returns to the small Pennsylvania town she had left right after high school. Gia's father had died during WWII, and her Italian mother, pregnant when she immigrated to the States, was killed in an accident while Gia was just a toddler. Though Gia's aunts clothed and fed her, it was Uncle Tony who taught her how to think. Her hometown, like many others in the region, has since slid into decline: many familiar landmarks have disappeared, but Gia discovers that some of the old passions and friendships survive, and she is soon reunited with three friends who shared her past. There's Yozo, for one, now a successful businessman (though unhappy husband), who loves Uncle Tony almost as much as Gia does. For another, theres Barbara, Gia's best friend, whos now usually sloshed (she too has a bad marriage), and for whom Yozo is still carrying a torch. And, most importantly for Gia, theres Willie, now Father William Cunningham, who serves the local parish. As Tony lies dying, the four meet and hash over whats been happening to each of them: Gia's second husband committed suicide; Barbara had a shotgun wedding; and Willie pursued the priesthood mainly because Gia took off. He still loves her (as she does him), and, hardly a surprise, he almost breaks his vows. As for the rest, Tony dies, Gia gets ready to go, but then Barbara is put on life support, and -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

First novelist Appollo, a former attorney, blends vividly realized characters with startling plot twists in this tumultuous comic novel. When former classmates from the class of 1963 in a Pennsylvania mining town high school get together again 35 years later, they face two tragedies over a nine-day period, surrounded by their bizarrely funny relatives. The classmates are Gia, a San Francisco divorce lawyer; Willie, her former steady, who has become a priest; Yozo, a little guy who made a million by age 35; and Barbara, a cheerleader turned alcoholic. Typical minor characters include a nun who is a former shoplifter and a funeral home employee who steals and cremates a corpse against the family's wishes. Appollo confronts difficult issues (the right to terminate life support for a loved one and the right to decide how one's remains will be handled) with forthrightness and a satirical bite that may shock traditional readers. For large public libraries.AJoyce W. Smothers, Monmouth Cty. Lib., Manalapan, NJ
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harpercollins
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060192089
• ISBN 13: 9780060192082
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 277