The Last Hiccup

By Christopher Meades

"A strange and surprisingly touching novel about how people find good and evil where they look for them." -- Booklist

"A beautifully written novel, part folk tale, part parable." -- Will Ferguson, author of the Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning 419

Winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction

In 1930s Russia, an eight-year-old boy named Vladimir is suddenly stricken with a chronic case of the hiccups. He soon finds himself spirited away to a Moscow hospital by the famous physician Sergei Namestikov, who puts him through a series of extraordinary -- and often bizarre -- treatments in an effort to find a cure.

Then Sergei's chief medical rival, the brilliant Alexander Afiniganov, determines that beneath Vladimir's blank eyes lurks a pure, unbridled evil -- and takes steps to remove the child from polite society. Abandoned by everyone but his hiccups, Vladimir is about to embark on a journey that is funny, poignant, and surreal -- and that takes a close look at the nature of good and evil.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1550229737
• ISBN13: 9781550229738
• Release Date: April 2012
• Publisher: ECW Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"