The Last Hiccup

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“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.

AUTHOR

Christopher Meades

Christopher Meades’s novel The Last Hiccup won the 2013 Canadian Authors Association National Award for Fiction. His first novel was The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark, and his stories have been featured in dozens of journals including The Fiddlehead and The Dalhousie Review. He lives in Vancouver, where his two young daughters treat him like a trampoline. One day he hopes to escape his cubicle and live by the beach.

Reviews

“Meades reveals himself a gifted writer, deft with descriptions splashing surrealistic images.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Extremely clever, dark, surreal, and unexpectedly poignant. I certainly hope Chris continues to push himself into the unexpected, for I sense there are fathoms of fantastic weirdness in him just aching to be discovered.” — Shelf Monkey
“Christopher Meades’s writing feels like an artform in itself … if you enjoy dark-ish humour, Canadian literature or books that are just different, this is the book for you.” — Just a Girl Geek
“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 novel 419