Buy used: $55.83
FREE delivery Saturday, May 4
Or fastest delivery Thursday, May 2. Order within 12 hrs 4 mins
Used: Good | Details
Sold by Martistore
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Good

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Patrick McGuinness
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Last Hundred Days: A Novel Paperback – May 22, 2012

by Patrick McGuinness (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 316 ratings
See all formats and editions

Once the gleaming "Paris of the East," Bucharest in 1989 is a world of corruption and paranoia, in thrall to the repressive regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. Old landmarks are falling to demolition crews, grocery shelves are empty, and informants are everywhere. Into this state of crisis, a young British man arrives to take a university post he never interviewed for. He is taken under the wing of Leo O'Heix, a colleague and master of the black market, and falls for the sleek Celia, daughter of a party apparatchik. Yet he soon learns that in this society, friendships are compromised, and loyalty is never absolute. And as the regime's authority falters, he finds himself uncomfortably, then dangerously, close to the eye of the storm.

By turns thrilling and satirical, studded with poetry and understated revelation, The Last Hundred Days captures the commonplace terror of Cold War Eastern Europe. Patrick McGuinness's first novel is unforgettable.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bloomsbury USA
  4. Publication date
    May 22, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    5.47 x 1.01 x 8.33 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1608199126
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1608199129
  8. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Editorial Reviews

Review

Longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize

"Sharply observant . . . capture[s] the way corruption and tyranny warp behavior in any society." - Washington Post

"Observant, reflective, witty and precise . . . Combining the essayistic, the lyrical, the humorous and the aphoristic, sometimes within a single paragraph." - New York Times

"A wonderfully good read... In this twilit world every action has a moral dimension" - Spectator

"An unfurling narrative, with its cast of impressively drawn characters, that is almost Tolstoyan in scope... McGuinness is an accomplished poet and writes with superb clarity... and his observations have the unmistakable scent of authenticity. This is a novel that rages and flows by turns, but rarely disappoints." - Independent

"[Christopher] Isherwood's Berlin novels come to mind... [McGuinness] offers something more complicit and more skeptical about its own objectivity, a glimpse of the moment when Romania's cold war began to thaw" - Observer

"An ambitious work... The sardonic crispness and evocative power of the language distinguish it from the run of contemporary fiction" - Times Literary Supplement

"An unusual, and unusually interesting, first novel... an assured performance." - Paul Bailey, Literary Review

"Stunning." - Times

About the Author

Patrick McGuinness was born in Tunisia in 1968 and lived in Bucharest in the years leading up to the Romanian revolution. He is a professor of French and comparative literature at Oxford University and a fellow of St. Anne's College. As a poet, he has won an Eric Gregory Award and Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize. His latest collection, Jilted City, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. McGuinness lives between Oxford and North West Wales. His web site is www.patrickmcguinness.org.uk.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloomsbury USA; 1st edition (May 22, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1608199126
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1608199129
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.47 x 1.01 x 8.33 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 316 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Patrick McGuinness

Patrick McGuinness

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Praise for Blood Feather:

This is a deeply moving book of poems ... Shimmering with the "sweet dark syrup" of humour, and gorgeous sleights of imagery, these are poems of extraordinary grace; they come up for air with their cupped hands empty, yet brimming with light,

Fiona Benson

Patrick McGuinness was born in Tunisia. His first novel, The Last Hundred Days, is a semi-autobiographical account of the fall of communism in Romania, where he lived as a teenager. It was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Costa First Novel Award and the Desmond Elliot Prize, and won the Wales Book of the Year and the Author's Guild Novel Award. His memoir of a childhood in post-industrial Belgium, Other People's Countries, won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Wales Book of the Year. He has written two books of poetry, The Canals of Mars and Jilted City, both from Carcanet Press, and written various BBC radio programmes and dramas. His second novel, Throw me to the Wolves, was published by Jonathan Cape UK and Bloomsbury USA, and an Italian Selected Poems, entitled Déja-vu, appeared from Interno Poesia in 2019. Throw me to the Wolves won the 202 Encore Award.

Real Oxford, a book about the city behind the university, appeared in 2021, and he is the editor of the 2-volume Penguin Book of French Short Stories (2022)

His new collection of poems, Blood Feather, is published in May 2023.

twitter @padrigmcg

www.patrickmcguinness.org

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
316 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Sylvia Weiser Wendel
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding treatment of a nasty time
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2020
Verified Purchase
Mc Guinness is a multitalented writer, as capable with long expositions as he is with pithy epigrams. As I read “The Last Hundred Days,” I had to frequently remind myself that this was a novel, not a memoir; that Leo O’Heix never existed; that there was no such person as Manea Constantin, not to mention his daughter Celea.

It is true that as the novel progresses, and we grow ever closer to that bloody Christmas Day, there is a little creakiness among the fictional devices: the coincidences, the sudden materializations, the tidiness of the wrappings-up, all start to reek a bit of contrivance. Still, though, for someone who was alive, adult, and paying attention during the autumn of 1989, this book will bring back the exhilaration and the stupefaction of that singular time. “This couldn’t be happening” — and yet it was, and did.

McGuiness’ protagonist, traumatized by parental dysfunction, isolated by inclination as well as geography, strikes the right balance between reportage and participation. If his romances seem improbable, the reader doesn’t care much,because the book is really not about the narrator at all. Leo O’Heix is the centerpiece, and he is realized in sprawling technicolor, boozy breath and all. While Leo does get to be more of a mouthpiece than a character at times, he says what the reader needs to hear about the dreadful reign of the Ceausescus and their precipitous fall.

I have seen hours of documentaries about 1989, read dozens of books (and written my own), plowed through acres of backstory—but McGuinness’ fiction gives us sullen, sodden Bucharest up close in its most amazing moments. Yes, it was ultimately just another case of “Meet the new boss ... same as the old boss,” but the communist facade had to come down, and the world really is a better place for it. New dragons may pop up, new woes may accrue — but the double-headed monster that ruled Romania for too long remains as dead as Monty Python’s parrot. Which is good.

I’m looking forward to reading more fiction by McGuinness. For a first novel, “The Last Hundred Days” is a surprise, a delight, and a success.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting look at the last days of the Romanian dictatorship
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2019
Verified Purchase
An interesting look at the last days of the dictatorship in Romania. Although the novel does not claim to represent any real person, the historical events are true. What is not covered is how or why in that moment the people chose to rise up and overthrow the government. That would make a better story.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
keetmom
5.0 out of 5 stars Romanian tragedy the stage for political liberation and personal redemption
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book is quite unlike any other that I have read. I knew very little beyond the media headlines about what happened in Romania between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the overthrow of the Ceausescu Regime. Now that I have finished "The Last 100 days" I feel like I was there myself. Such is the power of Patrick McGuinesses's writing, you feel totally enveloped by it all - the sights, sounds and smells surround you and the bizarre banality of daily life is revealed in clear, brutal detail. This is a totally absorbing, multi-layered read - part travelogue, part political primer, part romance and part delayed coming of age epic.

Behind the political story and helping you make sense of it, is a powerful personal narrative. A disengaged young Briton, lacking focus and struggling to resolve a host of personal issues lands up in Romania and gets propelled into relationships and activities he doesn't fully understand. Everywhere he seems to stumble over the tracks of his mysterious predecessor, in the process uncovering the more sinister aspects of Romanian life. As he grows in conviction and courage, so the dictatorship starts to crumble until he finally emerges as a different man, embracing an altogether different future.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
John Fitzpatrick
3.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining but confusing read
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2019
This book is worth reading for its insight into the hellish world of the Ceausescu regime in Romania rather than its literary merits. I debated giving it four stars but that was too generous.

The main characters are two English expatriates who get caught up in the period leading to Ceausescu's overthrow and death. However, they are totally unconvincing. The narrator is some kind of lecturer who gets offered a job he has not applied for or been interviewed for. The other is an unconvincing mixture of academic, amateur historian, smuggler, black marketer, drunk and even journalist. At times he is funny but just not credible.

Somehow or other this duo who are only in their early 20s become involved in the machinations at top level and mix with government ministers, diplomats, secret police and gangsters. There are also lots of Romanian characters including a femme fatale, an idealistic young Communist, a conniving minister…

Much as I liked it I was glad to reach the last page.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
William T. Wildman
4.0 out of 5 stars An alternate universe in real life
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2012
Verified Purchase
This novel seems to capture the dislocation that occurs when trajectories cross...sort of makes you wish that you were there but not really. News stories may have reported the abuses of the Ceausecsu regime but all I can remember were gymnastics and the liberalization of communism. Apparently there was quite a bit more and most of it was terrible verging on the tragic. Its a good story with engaging characters.
Helpful
 Report
Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful visit to a different place and time
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2012
Verified Purchase
I loved this book! I worked in Bucharest in 2003-2007, a very different time from the 1989 setting of the book, but as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Patrick McGuinness so beautifully captures the feeling and atomosphere of the city -- which hasn't changed as much as you might expect -- that I felt completely transported back to a place that will always have a warm spot in my heart.

You don't have to be an old Romania hand to enjoy The Last 100 Days, though. The book well deserved its spot on the long list for the 2011 Mann Booker Prize. The story is gripping and the characters are extremely well drawn. But it is the time and place that truely draw you in. History owes Mr. McGuinness a debt of gratitude for capturing and preserving this moment in time.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Nathanael MJ Wright
5.0 out of 5 stars The Anatomy of a Revolution
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 11, 2022
Verified Purchase
A compelling critique of what it was like to have lived through the chaos that surrounds the capture, trial and execution of a brutal dictator, who had lived in opulence, content to turn one huge blind eye to the starvation endured by the citizens for whom he had responsibility. This book speaks to the uprisings of today, yet in a sense raises more questions than it answers. Was it the grassroots revolt of the people that drove change? Could they have done it if Russia was supporting the dictatorial regime? The politics of Eastern Europe is currently global news and anyone wishing for a better understanding of such would become more informed by reading this book.
Ultimately, however, this is a book of hope triumphing over repression. Whilst utopias do not exist, the day-day life of the typical Romanian citizen is materially, culturally and emotionally better than the time period highlighted by this novel.
Report
Cassandra
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating
Reviewed in Canada on April 9, 2014
Verified Purchase
The Last Hundred Days, set in Romania, is not so much about the Ceauçescus as about the society - and the architecture - that they destroyed around them. A young English teacher, rootless and unhappy, glad to leave his earlier life behind, plunges into the disorder. Unconcerned with danger, he has both sexual and political adventures, finding that even the deepest levels of deceit may be strangely layered with human decency - and that love still conquers all.
One person found this helpful
 Report
Maria
5.0 out of 5 stars Almost real
Reviewed in Spain on June 12, 2014
Verified Purchase
I actually had to go and check it was fiction. It reads like a very good memoir, and makes Bucarest under Ceaucescu appear before your eyes.
Report
superg156
5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling and educational
Reviewed in Australia on April 7, 2016
Verified Purchase
Reading this in Bucharest was extraordinary . I felt it was like yesterday. Definitely recommended, very deserving of a Booker long list
Report
sue
4.0 out of 5 stars I really enjoyed this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
I really enjoyed this book. The history of a once great country crushed into servility by the big mechanisations of Communism.
What Ceausescu and his equally brutal wife Elena will do to keep themselves rich and keep the poor not only starving but homeless, jobless and desperate to escape to a free country.

Known as the vegetable basket of the world the labour forced on the people to grow food was not for the Country's benefit but for the rich and the export (to make money for Ceausescu and his family) whilst the workers were having to queue all night in the hope of buying a loaf,
This is a story about a mans' accidental place of employment and his struggles to understand all those around him and how he watches beautiful and ancient architecture being torn to the ground to be used as high rise grey boxes in formed rows which was to become the new homes of the displaced. Of the struggle and the death of anyone who tried to intervene and how he ended up in a position where he actually helps people escape and of the machines of war moving in and around the great city of Bucharest to try and quell the final 100 days of the uprising of the youths and peasants.
Report