June 13, 2025, 11:57am

Last night at the New York Public Library, Alexander Sammartino won the Young Lions Fiction award for his debut novel Last Acts. This was the 25th year of the Young Lions Award, which comes with a $10,000 prize.

Last Acts follows a man burdened with a failing gun store and a son recovering from a near-fatal overdose. The fragile relationship between the father and son is tested as they conspire to outrun bankruptcy and achieve some kind of American dream through a series of misadventures and hijinks.

Sammartino was selected out of a group of five finalists which also included ‘Pemi Aguda’s Ghostroots, Eliza Barry Callahan’s The Hearing Test, Santiago Jose Sanchez’s Hombrecito, and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s Catalina.

The award ceremony at the NYPL’s midtown branch was emceed by Penn Badgley—there was a minutes-long gasp-and-chatter delay when it was announced he was hosting. Interestingly, the character Badgley played on Gossip Girl was a finalist for the Young Lions Award, which made for a meta, full circle moment. A selection from each of the finalists’ novels was read by a star-studded line-up of Tyler Foggatt, Millicent Simmonds, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Fran Tirado, and Alexa Barajas.

The New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award was created 25 years ago by Ethan Hawke, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, Rick Moody, and Hannah McFarland. Sammartino joins past winners E.J. Koh, Zain Khalid, Kalani Pickhart, Catherine Lacey, Ling Ma, and more.