The Last Shot

by Hugo Hamilton

In a tale that spans two generations, an American living in West Germany travels to Nuremberg, where he meets the man who fired the final--but unrecorded--shot of World War II. By the author of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374184046
• ISBN13: 9780374184049
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

The blurbs tell the story, but read it anyway!

For its poignancy and insight into what it must've been like as WW2 finally, but perhaps uncertainly, was ending, this novel brings that moment alive. Who fired the last shot and when serves as the hook for the reader, but I honestly felt this was rather anti-climactic when it's revealed. The strength here of Hamilton's skill lies less in the plot than in characterization and the establishment of mood as the Nazi remnants flee ahead of the Soviets from the Czech lands back into Germany. For those who like Hamilton's themes of German alienation and those caught between frontiers and national strife, this novel will please. Also look for a very hard-to-find counterpart novel of his set in the GDR, "The Love Test." Both works, as with his better-known thrillers and his memoir, take on loneliness and fear with compassion and humanity.