"These are the last things. A house is there one day, and the next day it is gone. A street you walked down yesterday is no longer there today. Even the weather is in constant flux. A day of sun followed by a day of rain, a day of snow followed by a day of fog, warm then cool, wind then stillness, a stretch of bitter cold, and then today, in the middle of winter, and afternoon of fragrant light, warm to the point of merely sweaters. When you live in the city, you learn to take nothing for granted. Close your eyes for a moment, turn around to look at something else. Nothing lasts, you see, not even the thoughts inside you. And you mustn't waste your time looking for them. Once a thing is gone, that is the end of it."

Suicide groups, melamine milk, middle class apathy, vicious hunger, despair and disillusionment; approximations of these current events are both described and foretold in Paul Auster's seemingly timeless, placeless depiction of human society gone to shit. In the Country of Last Things has the raw atmosphere of Jerzy Kowalski's Painted Bird, highlighted by Auster's signature symbolic play, but the book skews experiential rather than intellectual.