The Town of Last Sighs is a place where animals called “Domestics” – for example dogs, goats and pigs, but also a circus elephant – go to when they die, and where they stay until they decide to leave and enter the Land of Eternal Rewards. Unexpectedly, two rats, Romulus and Remus, find a living male infant in a garbage bag near the River separating the Town from the empirical world. The inhabitants of the Town do not know what to do with this “human puppy.” Only Raben, a dog, is sure that they should get rid of the “intruder.” Eventually, the “Domestics,” joined by one of the “Free” – a she-wolf called Mori – decide to try the case at their court to determine the infant’s fate. During the court case, they bring back memories about how they were harmed by humans when they were alive. Nevertheless, all the animals except Raben think that the child should be spared and stay with them. However, the verdict must be unanimous – this is why the baby is condemned to death. The dog, appointed executioner, cannot stand the boy’s crying and, therefore, does not kill him.

A few years pass. The boy is loved and protected by the animals – however, Raben does not seem to be very friendly towards him. One day, the human becomes aware that he is different from his guardians, as they tell him: “You’re not a bird! […] Nor a goat […]. Don’t wonder you’re an elephant […] or a pig. […] And you don’t resemble a horse at all. […] Look at your reflection in the water. Are you similar to any of us? No, you’re not. Because you’re not one of us. […] You were born human and it cannot be changed.”* The boy thinks about the world behind the River more and more. Eventually, Raben and the child visit the wise White Tiger who confirms the dog in his conviction that his companion belongs to the human world. It is also revealed that the boy’s name is Grakch, which was written on the note found years before by the rats.

Although humans cannot become animals, the opposite is possible: the animals can go back to the domain of life as humans, but they must return to the Town before the third sunrise. Raben decides to undergo such a metamorphosis to help Grakch. They cross the River and enter the city of Riministanza, where an election of a mayor is going to take place. One of the candidates turns out to be Vincent Teuffel – who happens to be both Grakch’s biological father and Raben’s former cruel owner. 

He is an evil man who trains dogs for fights and kills the “weaker” ones, as he is obsessed with the ideas of “perfection” and “purity.” This also applies to his own family: his first son was born with one leg shorter, so Teuffel placed him in an orphanage (where the boy died), and “got rid” of his mother, probably by killing her. The man’s second wife gave birth to twins. One of them is Grakch, born with a gland on his back, and therefore rejected by his father who ordered him to be killed (which did not happen). The second twin, Sven, did not have such a “flaw,” so Teuffel kept him – but the protagonist’s brother turned out to be empathic towards animals and attached to his mother. Perceiving all of this as weaknesses, the father imprisons him in the basement and constantly tortures him. When the father realizes that Grakch is alive, he locks him up and tortures him too. Grakch, Sven and Raben, with the aid of Mrs. Laura Teuffel, the boys’ mother released from the asylum, defeat the father. The family is reunited, while Raben, still in a human form (he did not return to the Town on time) plans to visit Litzmannburgh, a city where he was born and died as a dog.

* Grzegorz Gortat, Miasteczko Ostatnich Westchnień, ill. Marta Krzywicka, Warszawa: Agencja Wydawnicza Ezop, 2014, 35–36. Quotation translated by Maciej Skowera.

In a similar way to The Graveyard Book (2008) by Neil Gaiman and Strachopolis [Monsteropolis] (2015) by Dorota Wieczorek, Gortat’s novel reworks Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book (1894). However, the story of Mowgli is not the first narrative which uses the motif of the child brought up by animals. 

According to the myth of the founding of Rome, Rhea Silvia, a Vestal Virgin and a descendant of Aeneas, gave birth to twins, Romulus and Remus, whose father was Mars. Rhea Silvia’s uncle, Amulius who previously overthrew her father Numitor to take the throne of Alba Longa, imprisoned the woman and ordered the children to be drowned in the River Tiber. His servants spared the boys who were found by a she-wolf. They lived with the animal until Faustulus, a shepard, discovered them. When Romulus and Remus grew up, they defeated their uncle and restored Numitor’s rule. Then, the young adults begun founding their own city, which was later called Rome.*

In The Town of Last Sighs, the situation is quite similar: animals find an abandoned child, one of the twins, who was ordered to be killed by being drowned in the river, while the mother was being imprisoned. However, in this case, the she-wolf is Mori, who does not raise the baby, and it is two rats who are named Romulus and Remus. This reversal of the mythological way of naming is interesting, as here, the animals get names – it is worth mentioning that they choose their new names after they die and to not use the ones given by humans anymore. The rats’ names, taken from the myth, can be seen as a symbol of their individuality, subjectivity, and independence – also when we keep in mind that a she-wolf who raised Romulus and Remus was unnamed. In effect, the novel can be interpreted as going further than the myth itself in presenting animals as important “actors” of the story. Not only do they perform actions, but are also individualized by naming themselves, which contrasts with Grakch’s own situation, as he does not know his real name for the first years of his life.**

* See: Michael Newton, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children, London: Faber & Faber, 2011, pp. 18–19. However, according to some variants of the myth, the city was founded on blood, as Romulus killed his brother Remus.

** Although Grzegorz Gortat himself does not think of this issue this way (see the Author’s Questionnaire), from the perspective of some branches of animal studies, and of posthuman thought in general, this can be also interpreted as an anthropocentric act of dependence – the Town animals, including rats, use the human names as if they were not able to abandon the roles of subaltern beings.

Jacques, Zoe, Children’s Literature and the Posthuman: Animal, Environment, Cyborg, New York: Routledge, 2015.

Newton, Michael, Savage Girls and Wild Boys: A History of Feral Children, London: Faber & Faber, 2011.

Rąbkowska, Ewelina, “Pozaedukacyjny zwierzyniec? Przekształcenia motywu raju zwierząt w polskiej literaturze fantastycznej dla dzieci i młodzieży” [Extra-Educational Bestiary? Transformation of Animal Paradise Motif in Polish Young Adult Fantastic Literature], Creatio Fantastica 2(53) (2016): 83–95.

Skowera, Maciej, “Literackie spotkania istot podporządkowanych. Studium przypadku: Miasteczko Ostatnich Westchnień Grzegorza Gortata” [Literary Encounters of Subaltern Beings. Case Study: Grzegorz Gortat’s The Town of Last Sighs], in Czytanie menażerii. Zwierzęta w literaturze dziecięcej, młodzieżowej i fantastycznej [Reading a Menagerie: Animals in Children’s Young Adult, and Fantasy Literature], Anna Mik, Patrycja Pokora, and Maciej Skowera, eds., Warszawa: Wydawnictwo SBP, 2016, 53–74.

Miasteczko Ostatnich Westchnień was published in “Ezop” publishing house’s series Lepiej w to uwierz! [You better believe it!], which consists of children’s horror, gothic, and supernatural novels. The other books by Gortat published in this series are: Ewelina i Czarny Ptak (2013), Nie budź mnie jeszcze (2013), and Piętnaście kroków (2015).

“Ezop,” the name of the publishing house, is the Polish equivalent of “Aesop.”

The illustration (p. 13) showing Grakch as an infant, accompanied by the Town animals, including the rats: Romulus and Remus, courtesy of Agencja Wydawnicza Ezop.

[Cover] Courtesy of Agencja Wydawnicza Ezop.

[Illustration] Courtesy of Agencja Wydawnicza Ezop.

[Gortat’s portrait] Courtesy of the Author.

[Krzywicka’s portrait] Courtesy of the Author.