The Wall
Marlen Haushofer
Cleis Press Start
&#147;I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead&#133;&#8221; writes the heroine of Marlen Haushofer&#8217;s <I>The Wall</I>, a quite ordinary, unnamed middle-aged woman who awakens to find she is the last living human being. Surmising her solitude is the result of a too successful military experiment, she begins the terrifying work of not only survival, but self-renewal. <I>The Wall</I> is at once a simple and moving talk &#150; of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the use of one&#8217;s name &#150; and a disturbing meditation on 20th century history.