Late City

A visionary and poignant novel centered around former newspaperman Sam Cunningham as he prepares to die, Late City covers much of the early twentieth century, unfurling as a conversation between the dying man and a surprising God. As the two review Sam’s life, from his childhood in the American South and his time in the trenches of the Great War to his fledgling newspaper career in Chicago in the Roaring Twenties and the following decades, snippets of history are brought sharply into focus.

Sam grows up in Louisiana with a harsh father, who he comes to resent for both his physical abuse and what Sam eventually perceives as his flawed morality. Eager to escape and prove himself, Sam enlists in the army while underage. The hardness his father instilled in him helps him survive the War, but prevents him from contending with its emotional wounds. Back in the US, Sam moves to Chicago to begin a career as a newspaperman that will bring him close to all the major historical turns of the twentieth century. There he meets his wife and has a son, whose fate counters Sam’s at almost every turn.

As he contemplates his relationships – with his parents, his brothers in arms, his wife, his editor, and most importantly, his son – Sam is amazed at what he still has left to learn about himself after all these years in this heart-rending novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner.

• A 115-year-old man lays on his deathbed as the 2016 US election results arrive, and revisits his life in this moving story of love, fatherhood, and the American century
• Robert Olen Butler won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (also published by No Exit Press), as well as the F Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature
• Includes topical references to contemporary US politics and the controversial 2016 election
• Unwavering public interest in the events of the First World War and the infamous Roaring Twenties
• Perfect for fans of literary and historical fiction, such as Richard Ford’s Bascombe Trilogy (45K sold) and Richard Powers’ The Overstory (75K sold)
• Extensive review coverage expected in US in September 21 and on UK publication
• From the author of the critically-acclaimed Christopher Marlowe Cobb historical crime fiction series: The Hot Country, The Empire of Night, The Star of Istanbul And Paris in the Dark, published in the UK by No Exit Press