“I meet Jesus on the day I get home from the war.”
With that, Warren Harlan Pease—a young U.S. Army sniper—walks a dark New Hampshire beach at the start of a single day that will reorder his life. A barefoot man in jeans and a T‑shirt stays by his side as Warren revisits those marked by his absence: Bethie, his high‑school love and mother of their daughter, Dodie; Ryan, his best friend, now at the center of new complications; his grieving father; and, outside ordinary time, the mother whose death has shadowed him since boyhood.
The graphic reality of Iraq—crossed with a rifle and a stubborn faith—meets the quiet intimacy of home as Warren learns that war doesn’t test belief in Jesus so much as belief in oneself. Told in Warren’s plainspoken yet lyrical voice, The Last Day weaves religion, love, and loss into a story both page‑turning and contemplative.
- “Ambitious and lyrical… worth a dozen Shacks.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
- “A powerful story of one young man’s faith, failings, and redemption.” — Library Journal
- “Haunting and beautiful, rippling with skillfully intertwined themes of faith, love, religion and war… Landis writes with mastery and grace, weaving together fiction and philosophy with profound beauty.” — BookPage
- “Landis probes the bonds between war and faith… sterling dialogue… the back-and-forth between Pease and Jesus is the book’s best feature.” — The Valley News
- “Landis shows a deep knowledge about snipers… he artfully renders the moral negotiations that war has had with himself about being a killer.” — Kirkus Reviews