THE LAST CHAPTER

About the Book

The Last Chapter centers on a friendship between a believer and a non-believer and an investigation into abuse at a mysterious nursing home. In this excerpt, it is the believer who finds himself down on his luck:

The man, who used to exorcise, to dance, to sing, to heal, stood there in the freezing night coiled in on himself, devoid of strength and, perhaps, hope-defenseless, impotent. Gone were his charisma, his smile, the sparkle in his eyes. Those eyes that used to stare at evil, to threaten it, to order it out of someone's body, eyes that shone in the spotlight of television interviews, now they were buffeted by blistering winds and cold. That voice that resounded under the vaults of the churches or in the streets that ordered a maimed patient to stand and walk, that made pronouncements against AIDS, slavery, and injustice that sang joyful songs in the festivals before an oceanic TV audience, now languished in the depth of his throat

About the Author

Antonio Casale was born in Cervinara, Italy, and immigrated to America in the 1960s. He has studied in Florence, Madrid, Saltillo (Mexico), and Syracuse, New York. He has been a faculty member at Syracuse University for 17 years. He hosts a local radio program, and was a commentator on Italian television for ten years. He is the author of the novel A Fistful of Happiness.