The Last Shot
In his second novel,
The Last Shot, Hamilton elaborates on the theme of how past and present are inextricably intertwined by having the present day narrator resurrect with scrupulous care the forgotten history of his mother Bertha and of 'the last shot' fired during the Second World War. Both the events in the Bertha's life in May of 1945 and her sons travels through a divided Germany between 1985 and 1990 gather significance by being told side by side, with the narrator distributing his attention to the perpetuation of both narrative strands equally. By showing how seemingly disconnected events - the end of the Second World War and the arrival of 'freedom trains' in West Germany together with the fall of the Berlin Wall - are part of a larger pattern, the narrator's message seems to be that only by seriously working upon the past the individual will form a stronger sense of self and be able to progress.
Faber & Faber 1991
Translated into: Dutch
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