Last Acts: A Novel

by Alexander Sammartino

A rollicking, satirical debut novel about a gun-store-owning father and son forced to live together after a near-death experience—an unflinching look at the absurdities of contemporary capitalism and what it means to be a family in America today.

“Honest, highwire, virtuosic writing that summons up the world with all its charms and hazards.” —George Saunders, author of Liberation Day
“This funny as hell tale kept me moved to the core. Unputdownable.” —Mary Karr, author of Lit

Even though his firearms store is failing, things are looking up for David Rizzo. His son, Nick, has just recovered after a near-fatal overdose, which means one Rizzo can use Nick’s resurrection to create the most compelling television commercial for a gun emporium that the world has ever seen. After all, this is America, Rizzo tells himself. Surely anything is possible. But the relationship between father and son is fragile, mired in mutual disappointment. And when the pair embarks on their scheme to avoid bankruptcy, a high stakes crash of hijinks, hope, and disaster ensues.

Featuring a cast of unforgettable characters, this razor-sharp social satire lays bare both the gun and opioid crises. Fans of Don DeLillo and Stephen Markley will be thrilled by this smart, inventive debut.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Novels, Literature, Humor

223 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 23, 2024

About the author

Alexander Sammartino lives in Brooklyn. He received his MFA from Syracuse University. Last Acts is his first novel.

Reviews

[Cecil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because there were blurbs praising it from authors I like. I’m not sure if we read the same book, because nothing I read was worth any praise. As a satirical critique of marketing it failed, as a straightforward father-son relationship novel it failed, as a critique of gun culture it failed. It also failed to be the least bit interesting.

[Shelby (catching up on 2025 reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finding the strangest theme in my reading this month..... addiction!

I started with The Many Lives of Mama Love, and subsequently read:

Northwoods
Drunk-ish
The Clinic
What is Mine
and now Last Acts
All with addiction themes.

Weird coincidence!

𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝘀
𝗔𝗹𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗼

⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Rizzos are having a rough go. David is about to lose his gun shop, while his son Nick is addicted to heroin. Following an overdose, the two pair up for the first time in a year, intent on saving the gun shop through hair-brained schemes and hijinx.

Last Acts is a unique, satirical, mixed media novel that somehow manages to make guns and opiods entertaining and funny. It's a sharp, witty, commentary on good ol' 'Merica, while also exploring fragile father son relationships. While this one won't work for every reader, I found it to be quite good.

Thank you Scribner for the gifted copy. ❤️

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the ebook. This is a wonderfully satiric novel about a father and son relationship in America today. Rizzo runs a gun shop in Arizona that no one visits. His son Nick has just survived a near fatal overdose. Rizzo can’t afford to send Nick to rehab, so instead he has a TV commercial made to exploit his son’s situation and promote his failing business. And that’s just the beginning of a story that’s told over several years and with an endless supply of oddball characters throughout.

[Laura Solar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I… no. This book is only 213 pages and felt like an absolute lifetime. I don’t know if I just didn’t get it, or if this book just has no point. Maybe this will work for some people, but between the drawn out way of writing and the boring (lack of) plot, this was just a miss all around for me.

[Stacy40pages · Rating 3 out of 5]

Last Acts by Alexander Sammartino. Thanks to @bookclubfavorites for the gifted copy ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rizzo owns a gun store, which is failing. After his son, Nick, recovers from a near-fatal drug overdose, he brings him to work for him. They use Nick’s resurrection for a commercial and it takes off.

This was a quirky and apt satire about gun ownership and commercialism today. I particularly enjoyed the first half. The second half had some mixed media and parts went over my head. I think this will be a book many will love, but some will hate. It is a very unique review. I found myself laughing out loud a few times and really had no idea how it would unwind. This was also a very fast paced and quick read.

“He believed a man was the sum of his actions, and he was dismayed by his own total.”

Last Acts comes out 1/23.

[Brady Parkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book tried to play a balancing game between hilarious satire and dark reality and it only really succeeded in small moments.

I do think other people will like this book, but the structure and the prose for me just didn’t come together. Overall it was an uncomfortable read…but not uncomfortable on the way I think was intended. I happy to be finished reading it.

There is some merit to it and that if people are able to connect with the style, it could be a win for them. It just wasn’t for me. Not a bad book, but not one I personally enjoyed.

[Ruben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed feelings about this one. It is definitely funny in a way that reminded me of Donald Ray Pollock and the Texan setting was great. But as the book progressed and the focus shifted from one main character to the other, I somehow cared less and less.

I guess it tries to address important themes such as gun violence, addiction, father-son relationships, but that is very difficult to pull off in a satirical tone.

[Mustafa Marwan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The execution is not as good as the premise. Bite size chapters are a big plus. It's somewhere in-between satire and literary and ended up neither. However, there are parts that I read twice because they were spot on.

[Izzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last acts by Alexander Sammartino

Ch 1
Locus: Phoenix.. America ..
A lot of smoking…..salesmanship… dreams

David Rizzo: age maybe 60; his relationship to his son: savior of the gun shop!; an estranged son, back for a reason
The gunshop
Junior Rizzo ( Nicholas) age 30 revived and collected at hospital; rather than rehab to work in Dad’s failing store. Unkempt, thin…
Ch 2: David Rizzo crying
Ch 3: David can gesture….convoluted grievances… television’s absorption vs telephone induced uncertainty …
Ambivalence towards son!
Ch 4:working in gunshop or rehab?
Ch 5
Ch10
Buford Bellum, a hustler from his teenage years; now quite wealthy desert tycoon; had sold David on gunshop…David ready to sell back to Buford
Ch 6
Informed by Felicia of Southwest Pools, he’s ‘missing in action’ for failing to show
Not acceptable to rehab with an invalid credit card
Nick also crying
Ch 7
Sharing confidences: father and son
Ch 8
Uncle Gio’s battle of Bulge remembrance and origin of Agita and Sartre & existentialism .. from whom Rizzo inherited a gun! Missing Gio’s funeral in Providence..
Crying at Old Canteen, Uncle Gio’s favorite place at same time he’s left by Allegra… and then he invested in Gunshop…to earn love
Ch 9
Rizzo sees a bunch of doctors….

Ronnie Deloitte:
Waiting for a crazy customer…
Waiting for son Nick to use again…
Dad: Rocco,
Mom: Anne Marie, sold shoes
Rizzo at 18, paratrooper, in Central America
Allegro Constantino, live of his life,legs… nicholas’ mother?
factory, Phoenix, kindergarten teacher,
Nick has fucked up his prior life
Anti drug ad; Rizzo firearms; starring Nick..
By ch 10 much water under the bridge with Buford at time Rizzo is ready to sell back…
After meeting Buford decision to stay in business with Nick
Rizzo sells Beowulf assault gun to a kid, Steve…
Ch 11: Nick making a TV ad for the gunshop and sobriety
Reminiscences of growing up in Providence ; green beret at age 18
Ch13: routines at gunshop; some flashbacks to Nick’s life before getting clean
ch 14: setting and script to ad…combating opioid addiction … multiple takes.. Nicholas cries … ad happened eventually…
Ch 15: in church communion; ad successful
Ch 16: describes Az; gunshop prospers
Talks circuit..for Rizzo and Nick
Other neighbors selling out…
Ch18: Felicia also missed .. her daughter also a user; selling out to Buford .
She becomes an anti gun shop demonstrator
And Nick determines she is helping business
Ch 19: an inept 17 year old school shooter
Ch 20: Rizzo sold Beowulf to kid underage or Scapegoat/Philanthropist businessman
Nick, part owner, doesn’t know what to say
Ch 21: Rizzo on tensions: guards.vs Blacks
To talk only with white guys over 50
Rizzo: sell
Nicholas: growing the business
A family ad for the business

Part II 2017…Eiffel tower dealership:
Nick’s Gun display outside church:
customer snapshots
Demonstrators @Rizzo’s: Nicholas responds
Social Media posts
a former addict Matt Wilson assists
Seasoned indifference: gets Nick to NA mtg
Buford celebrates this NA: clean x 15 years
Ch 5 Visits Dad: interesting interaction
Nick tells his Dad Buford can free from guns
Dad doesn’t trust Buford
Nick hiking “A” in Tempe with Matt
Nick has bad dream flashbacks
Matt running the store; but failing and crying
Boxing with Elise Allsworth
Lunch with Elise : helping shooting survivors
Visions during arrest: as a child…shadows..lawn.. brick house ..total silence
Huge guilt felt by Nick for Elise’ trauma
Ch 14: Deciding to also help Mass shooting survivors by crowdfunding
Ch 20: Matt blows up gunshop by promotional rocket
“Take care of yourself
“Sell the business
“Don’t sell the house
Nicholas failed on all three
Ew apartment: shelves lined with:


Who Says a Novel About Guns and Opioids Can’t Be Funny?
“Last Acts,” by Alexander Sammartino, is a satire of contemporary America set at a firearms shop in Phoenix.
Image


By Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon is the author of seven works of fiction, most recently the novel “Sleepwalk,” now in paperback.

LAST ACTS, by Alexander Sammartino

Alexander Sammartino’s exceptional, hilarious debut novel, “Last Acts,” is the tale of two salesmen in Phoenix: David Rizzo and his estranged son, Nick. Both men’s lives are floundering. Rizzo Sr. is drowning in debt and about to lose his firearms store because of several failed moneymaking and promotional schemes; his son has drifted from a gig-economy career as a digital marketer to become a full-time heroin addict.
As the book opens, David is on his way to a meeting with a real estate tycoon, who might be willing to purchase his store before it’s foreclosed on, when he gets a call from his son. Nick is in the hospital, recovering after a brush with death from an overdose. More than a year has passed since they last saw each other, but Nick has nowhere else to turn.
Thrown unwillingly together, the pair embark on a plan to save the father’s business, which will take them on a merry-go-round of success and disaster. Sammartino switches perspectives between this odd couple: The father, a lifelong wheeler-dealer who has sold cars, “never-dulling knives” door to door, recyclable IV bags to hospitals and Shasta Jacuzzis to hotels, is an eagerly self-deluding, Willy Loman-esque optimist soaked in flop sweat, whose fondest hope is to be “more than another guy whose life came up soul-crushingly short.” The son, meanwhile, is possessed by an ineffable, listless sadness, “staring at a search bar without knowing what to type,” and churning out internet promotional copy for small businesses like Pretty Paws Doggy Treats and PHX Home Hospice (“Dying is hard. We make it easy”).
But like his father, he too has a dreamer’s spirit, and he comes up with an idea for an inspirational, confessional infomercial that features his own overdose as its selling point and promises a cut of every sale to rehab centers and halfway houses:
What separates us from all the other gun dealers in the desert, though, is our commitment to combating opioid addiction. … I’m a recovering addict. … My father, David Rizzo, has made it his mission to be the first gun shop in America that aims for a social good. So come on in and tell us your story. At Rizzo’s Firearms, we’re shooting addiction dead.
When this unlikely advertisement strikes a chord with the gun-buying public, Nick and his father become local business celebrities — though soon enough, Rizzo’s Firearms finds itself at the center of a circus of controversy.
Given the stew of hot-button subjects “Last Acts” takes on — gun culture, mass shootings, the frenzied throes of late capitalism, the opioid crisis — it would be easy for the satire to become heavy-handed. But Sammartino is extraordinarily good at balancing the farcical nature of contemporary America with the complex humanity of his characters. He’s also a magnificent sentence writer, with a gift for pulling poetry out of an American vernacular that recalls the early work of George Saunders, and a sense of the beauty in shoddy landscapes:
He passed an unpaved neighborhood that, replete with scaffolding for future homes, resembled dazzling ruins; a grimacing man stood on a median, raising water bottles at the traffic; a woman in a sweatshirt pushed a shopping cart toward tents made out of blankets and patched tarps. … It was the time of year when many of the succulents had pink-petaled flowers pinched between their glochids.
While many novelists are struggling to figure out how best to address the state of the nation — centerless, ridiculous and terrifying, doomed yet trivial, dire yet unheroic — Sammartino seems to have cracked the code. What he gets exactly right is the way we all keep toddling along, heads down, going to work and paying the bills, checking our phones and streaming videos to keep ourselves distracted, ever hopefully, haplessly dog-paddling against the current, even as we’re borne away by the messes we’ve made.

LAST ACTS | By Alexander Sammartino | Scribner | 213 pp. | $27

[Lauren Fanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Bobbi bobbijoreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Rizzo and Nick are a father and son duo trying to get by. Nick is an addict and after an OD he joins his dad in running the family business - a gun shop. After unforseen circumstances, Nick is on his own to try and keep things afloat until his dad is back.

This debut is a poignant contemporary fiction. I expected more outright comedy but it felt like a satirical dramedy. The story is hearty, revolving around drug addiction, gun violence, poverty and income inequality with an undertone of humor through the personalities of the characters.

This is Sammartino's debut and it is incredibly well written. I loved the formatting.. there is the actual storyline and then chapters of News Reports, Emails, and Media Marketing. I got a kick out of the hashtags in the media marketing. The mannerisms in his writing style reminded me of works by Stephen Graham Jones.

This has a bittersweet open ending, which felt perfect for the story.

💬 Quoteable:

"This is how I know God is real: my son who makes me laugh."

I received a complimentary copy from Scribner Books and am leaving an honest review voluntarily.

[Chaunceton Bird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brisk, funny, and full of absurdist charm. For all its energy and cleverness, though, the novel is as dry as the Phoenix desert it's set in.

[Haley Callicott · Rating 1 out of 5]

It’s hard to like a book that’s 90% dialogue and where the main characters have 0 moral compass

[Anne Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last Acts is a one-of-kind, topical novel that I could not put down. Nick and Rizzo are the kind of characters you just can’t help feeling for - in spite of or perhaps even because of their tough exteriors. Their relationship, along with the writing, is the star of the show.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tale of two losers: father and son. Set in Phoenix I enjoyed the descriptions of the desert. It’s a satire on modern society: guns, drugs, capitalism, etc. David Rizzo, the father, owns a gun store that is not doing well financially. One of those guys who is a failed huckster. His son Nick is a junkie who is resurrected from an overdose. But there’s lots of love and soon some financial success due to a fresh marketing idea. But of course they can’t deal with success. The vicissitudes of the Rizzo Family continue as does life. All too real at times.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5) A very impressive debut, to be sure, and I’ll be looking for this writer’s next books with anticipation.

[Vincent DiGirolamo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not likely to appear on any middle-school reading list with its starkly droll treatment of drug addiction, the gun trade, school shootings, bogus internet philanthropies, and the commodification of everything. The storytelling is lean, elliptical, lyrical. The humor is dark. The rants and dialogues are sharp, like products of eavesdropping, mostly in unsavory desert locales. The emotional plotting always rings true. The estranged father-and-son protagonists manage to win our hearts despite their ceaseless screwups. The result is a kind of satirical neo-naturalism that makes you wish this weren't the world we're living in, yet grateful that hope endures in the harshest conditions. The beauty of the desert does not go unnoticed.

[Hillary Copsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I whipped through this very clever and sad book about men in America. I was entertained, but left wanting more. Reading this is like watching John Oliver or The Daily Show or scrolling through whatever the algorithm feeds you on social media -- you'll laugh and be a little outraged and sad about things that already make you a little outraged or sad. And usually, you won't be asked to do anything or change in anyway; that's for those people.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite like anything I’ve read before. The author has been compared to George Saunders and maybe that’s right. A lot of humor given the characters are pretty much all in sad situations. A lot of humanity as well, and the location, in Arizona, is interesting.

Good NYT review: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/23/bo...

[Colie Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would give it 6 stars if I could. I loved this book.

[Dorota · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

[Nick Kunze]

Doesn’t quite congeal. Good writing and a solid sense of humor, but it’s missing a center. Ends up feeling rudderless, even though there were plenty of moments I liked.

[Dani Winkler · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Jenny]

I do not want to give this one a star rating because I don’t think I should rate a book when it was just not a book for me. I do not enjoy reading books about the opioid crisis and the profiting of selling guns which result in mass shootings. I read reviews that the book is a satirical look at these tragic realities, and I can acknowledge that I am not the reader for this type of book. Demon Copperhead dealt with similar issues, which I also struggled through, but was more enjoyable because the story line was great and the characters were interesting.

This was a book club pick for me, otherwise I would not have picked it up. I am sure it has its audience who will appreciate it. Unfortunately it wasn’t for me.

[ThreeSonorans Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Desert Dreams and Desperate Measures: A Review of Alexander Sammartino's "Last Acts"
By Maestro Morales, Three Sonorans Reviews
Today I'm reflecting on Alexander Sammartino's debut novel Last Acts – a story that hits closer to home than most, unfolding in the sunbaked sprawl of Phoenix, just a few hours' drive from my own Tucson barrio.

As both a librarian and former mathematics professor, I've developed a habit of analyzing narratives for their underlying patterns and equations. Sammartino's story offers plenty to calculate: one failing gun shop, one recovering addict son, multiplied by desperation, divided by estrangement, all against the backdrop of our shared Sonoran Desert home.

Qué libro tan impactante. It's rare to find contemporary fiction that captures Arizona's contradictions so vividly – the harsh beauty alongside strip mall desolation, the rugged individualism versus our need for community connection.

About the Author and His Desert Debut
Alexander Sammartino emerges as a fresh voice in American fiction with this debut and as someone who grew up in Arizona. Sammartino demonstrates remarkable insight into the psychology of desperation and the particular brand of the American Dream that still draws people to our sunbelt cities despite their increasingly inhospitable climate – both meteorological and economic.

Last Acts joins a growing body of contemporary Southwest literature that examines the region beyond tourist brochures and retirement community advertisements. Much like the works of Tommy Orange, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Leslie Marmon Silko, Sammartino's novel acknowledges that the land itself is a character—one that influences human behavior through its extremes and contradictions.

The Arizona Landscape: Strip Malls and Lost Souls
What struck me most powerfully about Last Acts is its unflinching portrayal of modern Arizona urbanism. David Rizzo's struggling gun shop exists in a landscape many of us recognize but rarely see depicted in literature – the endless commercial strips, the cookie-cutter developments, the asphalt expanses reflecting heat back into an already overburdened atmosphere.

¿Qué pasó con nuestras ciudades bonitas? What happened to our beautiful cities?

Sammartino's descriptions of the commercial strips housing Rizzo's Firearms resonate deeply with those of us who have witnessed the transformation of our Southwestern communities. His vivid portrayal of faded storefronts, payday loan centers, and endless asphalt expanses captures the reality of modern Phoenix urbanism. Where once the desert's natural contours and indigenous wisdom shaped human habitation, we now impose geometric grids and corporate templates with little regard for place or community.

The gun shop becomes a potent metaphor – a business theoretically built on protection and self-reliance that instead contributes to isolation and fear.

As an Indigenous Chicano activist who has fought against unchecked development and for the preservation of Indigenous spaces, I found myself nodding in recognition at Sammartino's subtle critiques. The Phoenix he portrays is a place where human connections struggle to survive in environments designed primarily for commerce, not community. Each strip mall, each six-lane road, becomes another barrier between people like Rizzo and his son – physical manifestations of the emotional distances they struggle to cross.

Como siempre decía mi abuela, "The land remembers even when people forget." In Last Acts, the transformed landscape of metropolitan Phoenix seems to remember its desert origins through the relentless heat that beats down on Rizzo's failing enterprise, the way it extracts moisture and hope with equal efficiency.

The Weight of Addiction in the Desert Heat
Nick Rizzo's overdose and fragile recovery form the emotional core of Last Acts, and Sammartino handles this dimension with remarkable nuance. As someone who has witnessed addiction's impact on families in our communities, I appreciated the author's resistance to both romanticization and demonization. Instead, Nick's addiction is both a personal struggle and a social phenomenon—a reflection of the emptiness that goes beyond individual psychology.

Particularly compelling is how Sammartino connects Nick's substance use to the broader spiritual malaise of contemporary Arizona. In a landscape increasingly defined by transience and consumption, where historical memory and cultural continuity struggle against the bulldozer of development, Nick's search for chemical transcendence reads as an almost predictable response.

No es sorprendente – not surprising – that young people seek escape when their physical environment offers so little genuine connection.

The novel offers powerful insights into Nick's perspective during his hospital recovery. Sammartino contrasts the ancient permanence of distant mountains with the disposable architecture of modern Phoenix, suggesting that Nick's attraction to substances might connect to a search for intensity and meaning in an environment that often feels temporary and bland.

This portrayal resonates with what many of us working in community support roles have witnessed. The epidemic of addiction in our Southwestern communities cannot be separated from questions of meaning, belonging, and connection to place.

When we replace desert paths with parking lots and mutual aid networks with big box stores, is it any wonder our young people seek chemical solutions to existential problems?

Sammartino avoids simplistic moral judgments about Nick's addiction, instead presenting it as a complex response to both personal and environmental factors. The novel's portrayal of recovery is equally nuanced—not a straightforward journey toward wholeness, but a series of delicate steps forward, sometimes interrupted by setbacks backward. For those of us who have supported loved ones through recovery, this rings absolutely true.

Father and Son: A Borderlands Relationship
At its heart, Last Acts is a father-son story exploring the complicated terrain of male relationships across generations. With his failing gun shop and desperate commercial schemes, David Rizzo embodies a version of American masculinity—one defined by self-reliance, business success, and emotional stoicism. His son Nick represents both the continuation and rejection of this legacy, struggling to find his own path while carrying his father's expectations and disappointments.

What makes their relationship especially resonant for readers in the Southwest is how Sammartino frames their conflict within our region's specific challenges. The gun shop itself serves as a powerful metaphor—a business centered on protection and self-defense that paradoxically leaves its owner vulnerable and isolated.

Qué ironía más profunda – what profound irony – that Rizzo's dedication to selling weapons has left him essentially defenseless against economic forces beyond his control.

Throughout the novel, Rizzo grapples with the uncomfortable irony of his situation—a man who has spent years selling protection to strangers while failing to protect what matters most: his relationship with his son.

This contradiction captures the novel's nuanced exploration of masculinity in crisis. Rizzo has followed a traditional script of male success – entrepreneurship, self-sufficiency, emotional restraint – only to find himself failing by these very measures. His desperate plan to use his son's near-death experience as marketing material represents the ultimate corruption of family bonds by market logic, yet Sammartino somehow maintains our sympathy for this profoundly flawed father.

What resonated most with me as a Chicano reader was how the novel explores intergenerational relationships against the backdrop of changing social landscapes. Like many fathers and sons in our communities, Rizzo and Nick must navigate not just personal differences but shifting cultural terrain.

The Arizona that shaped Rizzo's expectations and ambitions is disappearing, while Nick comes of age in a more precarious, disconnected environment. Their struggle to communicate across this divide mirrors many families' challenges in our rapidly transforming borderlands.

Finding Hope in Harsh Landscapes
Despite its unflinching portrayal of addiction, economic struggle, and environmental degradation, Last Acts ultimately offers measured hope—not the facile optimism of Hollywood endings, but something more tenuous and true—the possibility that authentic connection might still be possible even in damaged landscapes.

Late in the novel, Sammartino crafts moments of quiet connection between father and son, often set against the backdrop of Arizona's natural landscape. As the day's light fades and the distant mountains shift in color, we witness small but significant steps toward genuine communication between Rizzo and Nick. These understated scenes of tentative reconnection capture what I found most valuable about Sammartino's novel – its suggestion that healing, while never complete or perfect, remains possible through authentic recognition of shared vulnerability.

En fin, that's what sustains our communities despite development's onslaught and addiction's ravages: our capacity to see each other clearly and stand together in brutal truths.

A Desert Blooming
As I close Sammartino's book and gaze out at my Three Sisters garden—corn, beans, and squash supporting each other as they have in this desert for thousands of years—I'm reminded that resilience takes many forms.

Last Acts offers no easy solutions to the challenges facing our Southwestern communities: addiction, unsustainable development, economic precarity, and familial disconnection. What it does provide is a deep human engagement with these issues, grounded in the specific textures and contradictions of contemporary Arizona.

Sammartino's debut offers valuable insights for readers seeking to understand the complex realities of the modern Southwest beyond tourist brochures and political simplifications. For those who call this complicated region home, it provides a mirror that reflects both our struggles and our enduring capacity for connection despite everything working to keep us isolated.

Last Acts is not an easy read, but like the desert itself, its apparent harshness conceals unexpected depth and beauty for those willing to look beyond surfaces. Sammartino has created characters who will stay with readers long after the final page – flawed, struggling humans doing their imperfect best in a landscape that both challenges and sustains them.

Como decimos en mi comunidad, the desert teaches us that life persists even in the most unlikely places. Sammartino's novel honors this truth while refusing to flinch from the very real damage we inflict on our landscapes and each other. For this Chicano librarian and activist, that honest reckoning makes Last Acts essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the contemporary Southwest in all its contradictory beauty.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a bit weird. It doesn't have a conclusion per se. Not sure I liked the style of this book.

[Sean Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Last Acts" is a bit of an odd duck. It deals with addiction, mass shootings, life's disappointments, and other pretty bleak topics, but it does so with a heavy dose of humor. It's a real black satire, but it also has a lot of heart and earnestness. It often reminded me of early Richard Russo, like "Straight Man". It's not a perfect book, but it's an enjoyable read and well suited for the crazy decades we're living through.

[Leslie Zemeckis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like a Sam Shepherd family drama filled with humor - Rizzo owns a gun store his son Nick is an addict and dies - briefly - when he returns to life the two make a fortune off a commercial pledging to donate a portion of gun sales to rehabs … sad, quirky,

[Carole · Rating 2 out of 5]

The owner of a failing Arizona gunstore picks up his drug addicted son and takes him to rehab. They go into business together, trying to spin their gun business as a publicly minded institution.

I didn't care for this book, but sometimes I was moved by it. I loved some scenes involving feral cats, and occasionally the father would have a long rant that I would find engaging and particularly well written. I nearly stopped reading this, but I made myself finish it on the theory that it might improve. It's probably a much better book than I'm giving it credit for being; I think I'm not in the right demographic to enjoy it.

[Maddie Grimes · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not the book for me. I was apathetic towards every character, and I honestly struggle to see what this book was trying to accomplish. It attempts to cover a multitude of seriously dark and complex topics (gun violence, drug abuse and overdose, imprisonment, strained familial relationships, etc.), but ultimately fails to pack any sort of emotional punch on any of these subjects. It fails also to provide any interesting commentary on any of these subject matters, nothing at all that I will think back on after finishing typing this review.