The idea of "making it" in the world, to come from nothing to something through hard work and persistence, is such a deeply held American principle that we don't give it a second thought. When a child declares he will grow up to be an astronaut or top-forty musician, we encourage it — hell, it might come true. When he does grow up and he's struggling to make manager at McDonald's, we still don't discourage his dreams when he spends his days crooning out of key at his favorite karaoke bar, or watching episodes of NOVA in hopes to learn something about his astronaut life goals.

Of course, our cultural aptitude towards making it big doesn't fit with reality. In fact, it's one of the reasons why we celebrate the small things in life, like the single mother who manages to feed her children and pay her bills on time, or the drug addict who manages to kick her addiction. These are honorable goals, but still reflect the many divisions we still have between rich and poor in America.

Fiona Maazel's debut novel Last Last Chance attempts to demystify these preconceived ideas of success through her main character Lucy Clark, a drug addict trying to kick her addiction and find love along the way. In the process, she points a lot of the hypocrisy and fear America faces in a post-9/11 world, and she throws in the apocalyptic threat of a superplague for good measure.

Last Last Chance follows the chaos and mystery of drug addiction and impending plague through the first-person narration of Lucy, who has so many things going on in her life at once, it becomes difficult to follow. Despite being in her early thirties, Lucy's had a hard time making her way through life; as the novel begins, she's been kicked out of her home and is searching for some sense of purpose while working and living at a kosher chicken-processing plant. As she returns to her home in New York to attend her best friend's wedding, things in her life spiral out of control: she misses her friend's wedding after getting the dates mixed up (but no matter, her friend married the only man Lucy ever loved), her mom is willingly trapped in a serious crack addiction, and her father, a former scientist for the U.S. government, has just committed suicide because vials of the plague were stolen from his lab, unleashing a superplague. It's a lot to take in, but Maazel's sense of humor, irony, and her engaging prose style make for a great read.

As Lucy falls back into old patterns in her childhood Manhattan home, apathy sets in. Although she tries to break her addictions, she watches her mother die slowly from crack addiction (a very wealthy one, at that). Lucy tries to seek help for her own drug problems from local 12-step programs, and eventually rehab. While all of this takes place, the strain of superplague is making its way across the country, striking fear and uncertainty in an America that is already full of fear and uncertainty.