Robert Olen Butler

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.

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