A Curiously Strong Literary Debut

Steffan Postaer’s first novel, The Last Generation, paints a world in which creativity—at its most basic human level—is dead. But don’t take it as a grand allegory about advertising.

“The concept came to me on a plane one day in 1998, after my first daughter was born with a terrible case of colic,” says Postaer, chief creative officer at LB Works in Chicago, who is best known for his “Curiously strong” Altoids ads. “I just thought of what the world would be like if no one could have children—what would be different.”