The Last One

Zusatztext 90919451 Informationen zum Autor Alexandra Oliva was born and raised in upstate New York. She has a BA in history from Yale University and an MFA in creative writing from The New School. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. The Last One is her first novel. Klappentext Survival is the name of the game as the line blurs between reality TV and reality itself in Alexandra Oliva's fast-paced novel of suspense. She wanted an adventure. She never imagined it would go this far. It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens-but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them-a young woman the show's producers call Zoo-stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game. Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life-and husband-she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills-and learn new ones as she goes. But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways-and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing. Sophisticated and provocative, The Last One is a novel that forces us to confront the role that media plays in our perception of what is real: how readily we cast our judgments, how easily we are manipulated. Praise for The Last One "[Alexandra] Oliva brilliantly scrutinizes the recorded (and heavily revised) narratives we believe, and the last one hundred pages will have the reader constantly guessing just what Zoo is capable of doing to find her way back home."-Washington Post "A high-concept, high-octane affair . . . The conceit is undoubtedly clever and . . . well executed, but what makes The Last One such a page-turner is Zoo herself: practical, tough-minded and appealing."-The Guardian "Oliva takes this (possibly) post-apocalyptic setting, grafts on a knowledgeable skewering of the inner workings of reality television and gives us a gripping story of survival. . . . This is the genius of Oliva's storytelling. . . . [She] makes a stunning debut with this page turner, and becomes a writer to watch."-Seattle Times "Oliva delivers a pulse-pounding psychological tale of survival. . . . [She] masterfully manipulates her characters and the setting, creating a mash-up of popular TV genres: Survivor meets The Walking Dead."-BookpageThe first one on the production team to die will be the editor. He doesn’t yet feel ill, and he’s no longer out in the field. He went out only once, before filming started, to see the woods and to shake the hands of the men whose footage he’d be shaping; asymptomatic transmission. He’s been back for more than a week now and is sitting alone in the editing studio, feeling perfectly well. His T-­shirt reads: coffee in, genius out. He taps a key and images flicker across the thirty-­two-­inch screen dominating his cluttered workstation. The opening credits. A flash of leaves, oak and maple, followed immediately by an image of a woman who described her complexion as “mocha” on her application, and aptly so. She has dark eyes and large breasts barely contained in an orange sport top. Her hair is a mass of tight black spirals, each placed with perfection. Next, panoramic mountains, one of the nation’s northeastern glories, green and vibrant at the peak of summer. Then, a rabbit poised to bolt and, limping through a field, a young white man with buzzed-­off hair that glints like mica in the sun. A close-­up of this same man, looking stern and young ...

Product details

• Authors: Alexandra Oliva
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 12.07.2016
• EAN: 9780425286005
• ISBN: 978-0-425-28600-5
• No. of pages: 294
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 233 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Ballantine Books
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense > Crime fiction, thrillers, espionage