Summary of the novel Il museo delle penultime cose (The Museum of the Penultimate Things)

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In the not-too-distant future of 2030, all the survivors of the Nazi deportations have passed away and Italy is shaken by a resurgence of antisemitism. In this hostile climate, Pacifico Lattes, a young scholar at the Holocaust Museum of Rome, is preparing an important exhibition on the last survivors of the concentration camps. His meticulous work of archiving and conservation, however, seems suddenly undermined by the news of the possible existence of a concentration camp survivor who is still living: within the confines of a retirement home there dwells a certain Attilio Amati, almost 100 years old, sour-tempered and taciturn. Attilio requests a Jewish funeral, though nothing is known of him or his history. Is he really the last living survivor of the deportations? And why has he always hidden this story until now? His name does not appear on the deportation lists. From the meeting between Attilio and Pacifico is born a difficult and determined investigation, an intense personal confrontation which will bring both men to recognize themselves in the painful experience of the other, and which will lead to the revelation of a seemingly unthinkable secret.

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