In 1953, after the end of the Korean War, 23 POWs refused to repatriate to America. The Last Repatriate tells the story of Theodore Dickerson, a prisoner who eventually returns to his home in Virginia in the midst of the McCarthy Era. He is welcomed back as a hero, though he has not returned unscathed. The lasting effects of the POW camp and troubles with his ex-fiancée complicate his new marriage as he struggles to readjust to the Virginia he holds dear.
“A harrowing story rendered in balletic prose, The Last Repatriate draws us inside a war of the body and of the heart—a confirmation of Salesses’ inventive, ambitious, big-hearted brilliance.”
-Laura van den Berg, author of What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us
“Matthew Salesses is a writer to embrace. In their beauty, strangeness, and heart, his fictions are a gift.”
-Paul Yoon, author of Once the Shore
“Salesses’ examination of the troubled mind of a Korean War POW returning home is pensive and brooding. A subtly painful psychological journey.”
-James Franco, author of Palo Alto
