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Graywolf Press
May 2008
On Sale: May 13, 2008
320 pages
ISBN: 1555974988
EAN: 9781555974985
Hardcover
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Fiction
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 jewelerβdramatically 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 sawβand vastly moreβthrough the eyes of various characters in the crowds. The End is the unforgettable debut of a singular new American novelist.
 Media BuzzWeekend Edition Saturday - November 16, 2008
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