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The Last One Home: A Novel
The Last One Home A Novel
Author: Annette Appollo
In her inspiring and irresistibly funny first novel, Annette Appollo delivers a heart-warming story of reconciliation, redemption, love, and hope--of four friends reunited in the small town where they grew up. "Viena qua. Ora." Come Here. Now. Hearing the whispered words, she feels her world, so carefully structured to shut out the s...  more » After more than thirty years, Gia Scarpino, a successful lawyer in San Francisco, is returning to the past, to the Pennsylvania coal town she escaped from after high school. Uncle Tony, the beloved padrino who raised and loved her with a ferocity that has protected her even to this day, lies dying, and Gia must now fulfill a long-held promise to be with him. But Tony isn't the only one who yearns to see her. Waiting, too, are the once-inseparable friends she left behind: Willie, the handsome Irish boy whose tantalizing kisses consumed her--now a man of the cloth devoted to God; Yoko, the class runt she saved from a sadistic nun--now a rich and successful entrepreneur to the surprise of everyone, mostly himself; Barbara, the girlfriend with whom she shared milk and cigarettes, secrets and dreams--now a troubled alcoholic caught in a dead marriage. When they first get together, it's as if they are teenagers again, wisecracking and raising hell as they did in tenth grade. But as the excitement of their reunion begins to fade, Gia sees that, while most things don't seem to have changed, both the town and her friends are different. Gia, too, isn't what she appears to be, for beneath her controlled, confident exterior is a bruised spirit scarred by heartbreak. To come together, Gia, Willie, Yozo, and Barbara must heal their wounds and confront the old rivalries, long-held resentments, promises broken, and dreams forsaken that have haunted them through the years. And while the person she loves most in life is leaving her, Gia poignantly learns that love itself is far stronger than any separation, even death, for love can never be lost or forgotten once it has been shared. By turns moving, funny, sad, and touching, Annette Appollo's The Last One Home is a profound story of truth and loyalty, of the bonds that shape us, sustain us, and ultimately uplift us--a moving tale to be treasured and remembered as it reminds us that there is no place like home. Ah Tony, you never left anything to doubt, Gia thinks. I have learned so well from you. Tonight I understand better than I ever have before that I am your legacy. My deeds in this world are what you will leave behind... She bends to kiss him good night, and she is filled to bursting with how much she loves him, how much he has given her, how strong his spirit is, how much she still wants to be like him. She is not ready to say good-bye to her godfather, but for the first time in her life, she realizes that they both have readied the way, that nothing is left unsaid, that he has been perfect in her life, and that she has become, indeed, the woman he wanted her to be, and that, perhaps more than savoring her own successes, that thought gives her peace and pleasure in a place within that belongs only to her and to the old man she loves.

-- from The Last One Home
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ISBN-13: 9780060192082
ISBN-10: 0060192089
Publication Date: 3/1999
Pages: 277
Rating:
  • Currently 2.3/5 Stars.
 3
2.3 stars, based on 3 ratings
Publisher: Harpercollins
Book Type: Hardcover
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

 reviewed The Last One Home: A Novel on + 82 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
Why the write up about this book says its about redemption etc I don't know but I'll never read another one by this author. Full of filthy language and explicit sexual content. Couldn't get past a couple of pages. Absolutely hated even those few.
Read All 1 Book Reviews of "The Last One Home A Novel"


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