“A strange and surprisingly touching novel about how people find good and evil where they look for them” (Booklist).
 
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—in this novel, a winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction from the author of Hanna Who Fell From the Sky.
 
“A beautifully written novel, part folk tale, part parable.” —Will Ferguson, author of Happiness
 

A darkly funny, tragic, and ultimately heroic novel set in 1930s Russia, The Last Hiccup is the story of Vladimir, an eight-year-old boy stricken with a case of the hiccups that lasts over a decade. Put through a series of extraordinary, often bizarre treatments by a famous physician, Sergei Namestikov, Vlad is spirited away from his rural home and doting mother to a hospital in Moscow. But Sergei’s chief medical rival, the brilliant Alexander Afiniganov, believes that beneath Vladimir’s mirror-less eyes lurks a pure, unbridled evil, and Vlad is removed from polite society. Isolated from everyone and everything save his hiccups Vladimir grows up to find inner peace among the hiccupping. On his way back into the world he once knew, through a country now in the midst of war, he encounters many strange people and situations, and worries about what would happen to him should a cure for his now-comforting affliction be found.

“A strange and surprisingly touching novel about how people find good and evil where they look for them” (Booklist).
 
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—in this novel, a winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction from the author of Hanna Who Fell From the Sky.
 
“A beautifully written novel, part folk tale, part parable.” —Will Ferguson, author of Happiness