LAST RACE

May’s speculative novel, set on Earth’s final day, explores what people choose to live for when there’s no future left to imagine.

The story centers on Griffin Johnson, a 24-year-old runner in the early 21st century whose last wish is to complete one last marathon in the safe, protected city of Austin, Texas, alongside Sabrina, the woman he loves, and his friends. With the end of the world nearing—its cause attributed to a combination of “technology, greed, fanaticism and self-preservation”—the Austin Marathon unexpectedly becomes a global phenomenon—a celebration and a reckoning that draws tens of thousands of people, many of whom are desperate to find meaning in civilization’s closing hours. May frames the race as an athletic event and a symbolic act of endurance against inevitability. Griffin becomes an unwilling public figure, projected onto screens and transformed into a symbol of hope that he never intended to embody. The novel balances large-scale catastrophe with intimate emotional stakes, focusing less on the mechanics of apocalypse than on the psychology of people confronting finality. May’s prose leans cinematic, frequently shifting between public spectacle and private introspection. Scenes of crowded race preparations, television broadcasts, and restless city streets create an atmosphere that’s both surreal and recognizable, as though contemporary culture has intensified under existential pressure. Beneath the action lies a meditation on performance: how modern society turns even grief into content, heroism into branding, and human vulnerability into entertainment. Yet the novel resists complete cynicism. Griffin’s determination to run, despite the futility surrounding him, becomes an affirmation of connection. Relationships anchor the narrative emotionally—especially the tenderness of Griffin’s bond with Sabrina and his loyalty to his running community. The marathon itself emerges as a metaphor for mortality: exhausting, communal, unpredictable, and finite. What’s ultimately most compelling isn’t the destruction of the world, but the persistence of spiritual longing.

A surprisingly heartfelt apocalyptic novel that finds hope at civilization’s finish line.