Extinction
Subtitle: a novel
By: Thomas Bernhard ; translated from the German by David McLintock.
Contributors: McLintock, David.
Edition: 1st American ed.
Publisher: A. Knopf; Ditributed by Random House, Inc.
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 325
Subjects: Inheritance and succession -- Fiction; Austrians -- Italy -- Fiction; Rome (Italy) -- Fiction; Austria -- Fiction
Description: Extinction, Thomas Bernhard's last work of fiction, takes the form of the autobiographical testimony of Franz-Josef Murau, the intellectual black sheep of a powerful Austrian land-owning family. Murau lives in Rome in self-imposed exile from his family, surrounded by a coterie of artistic and intellectual friends.

On returning from his sister's wedding to the "wine-cork manufacturer" on the family estate of Wolfsegg, having resolved never to go home again, Murau receives a telegram informing him of the death of his parents and brother in a car crash. Not only must he now go back, he must do so as the master of Wolfsegg. And he must decide its fate.

. Divided into two halves, Extinction explores Murau's rush of memories of Wolfsegg as he stands at his Roman window considering the fateful telegram, in counterpoint to his return to Wolfsegg and the preparations for the funeral itself.
Notes: Originally published: Frankfurt am Main : Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986.