User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I wasn’t captivated by The Tiger's Wife so I almost wasn’t going to read this. But I kept reading so much about it that my interest was piqued, and I have to say that I was very captivated by this western story. There are two narratives which for most of the novel felt very disconnected, but when they did, it was an amazing thing. Lurie, a Middle Eastern immigrant is brought to Missouri by his father in 1856. When his father dies, Lurie is sold to the Coachman who picks up the dead and robs graves. He finds “brothers” in Donovan and Hobb Mattie and soon becomes an outlaw. Nora’s is the second narrative and it’s 1893 in Amargo, Arizona Territory, where homesteading is tough and living on this parched land during a drought can be brutal. It’s particularly hard for Nora, whose husband is missing and then her two sons, as she tries to keep her home, while caring for her young son Toby, who sees a beast and her husband’s niece who holds seances. Nora is so thirsty and the writing is so spectacular- so was I because I felt as if I was there .
There is death here and whether or not there are ghosts here is a question that the reader will have to reconcile for themselves. Is his lost “brother” Hobb a ghost or does Lurie just imagine Hobb’s “want” that makes him steal? Is Evelyn, Nora’s daughter who died as a baby and has grown beside Nora through the years, an apparition or is Nora’s imagining her as a way of dealing with her grief and the secret she holds? I know this might sound eerie, but for me it wasn’t. I can’t forget to mention, Lurie’s camel, Burke who is his best friend and confidante. Camels in the west? So of course, this had me searching to find out if this was true and it was. There was a United States Camel Corp, an army experiment to use camels as pack animals : https://armyhistory.org/the-u-s-armys...
It’s slow going at times and it took a while for the two narratives to connect, but it was worth the wait to get to that moment where a sip of water meant everything in this time of desolation and despair. Beautifully written and highly recommended. I won’t hesitate to read Tea Obreht’s next book.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley.
Rating: really liked it
2.5 stars, rounded down
I picked this purely because I thought it took place in Arizona and I’ve always wanted to read a historical novel from the Arizona Territory days. I have not read Obreht’s prior book.
This one just never grabbed me. Told from two POVs, Lurie, a wanted man from Missouri who becomes a cameleer, and Nora, a frontier woman awaiting the return of her husband and older sons, it was choppy and stilted. Both are haunted by ghosts. In Laurie’s case, they literally make demands of him. And his narrative is directed to the camel he leads across the west. Nora holds conversations with her dead daughter.
I debated just putting this one down numerous times. The pace of this book is as slow as a desert tortoise. The story also meanders across time and place. To be honest, I only kept reading because other reviews mentioned how great the ending was (and it was worth finishing for the ending). In a way, it reminded me of Lincoln in the Bardo, similar language and of course, the ghosts. If you like that book, you’ll probably like this one. I didn't care for either. I was an outlier on that book and will probably by on this one as well.
Also, I had to do some research, but it would appear that Nora’s homestead was actually in what is now New Mexico, up close to the Four Corners. While the author spends a lot of time writing about the homestead, she didn’t give me a real sense of place. Anyone who has spent time in NM and AZ knows how different the landscape can be and I resented having to research it to get a better feel. And despite them being down to their last cups of water, huge periods of time pass when it doesn’t factor into the story at all. And how can there be mud in a drought? Little things like that irritated me. I did enjoy the story about the camels and their trek. In fact, the relationship between Burke and Lurie was the one part of the story I did enjoy.
My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.
Rating: really liked it
Ghost whispers and camel corpsI expected to like it more than I did, still an okay read. My favorite characters were a couple of camels.
Rating: really liked it
!! NOW AVAILABLE !!
4.5 Stars
It’s been around eight years since I read Téa Obreht’s debut novel,
The Tiger’s Wife, but the fact that I loved the beautiful writing and the story had been enough incentive for me to request this second novel,
Inland. I’m so glad that I did.
This story has a duel narrative, which kept me on my toes, and wanders over time, over centuries, and around the world in one of the narratives. Over the course of a day in another narrative, traveling through time using memories revisited, times and places, loves and losses over a lifetime. Through all of this, Obreht weaves this story of the early days of the Arizona Territory, 1893, with an enchanting sprinkling of magical realism, as well as a spiritual connection – both of these two narrators have conversations with, and connections to the dead.
This isn’t a carefree, cheerful read, yet it doesn’t dwell in the harshness of these lives. There is much pondering and wonderment of their surroundings, as bleak as they are, and through these we learn their stories. Obreht manages to skillfully weave into this story the historical experimentation of the United States Camel Corps. using camels as pack animals in the Southwest during the mid-19th-century development of the country. The US Army eventually decided to abandon this project, despite the camels’ stamina. This added another layer to the story, but what I loved most about this was the vivid portrayal of the era, the landscape, and the memories of these two people, their stories, as well as their conversations with those who haunt their days and nights.
If there were brief moments while reading this where it felt as though I had wandered in the desert too long, the breathtaking ending is one that will remain etched in my mind.
Pub Date: 13 Aug 2019
Many thanks for the ARC provided by to Random House Publishing Group – Random House
Rating: really liked it
Homeless and orphaned at age six, Lurie survived by working with "the Coachman" and sleeping in his stable. He helped collect "...lodgers who'd passed in their sleep, or had their throats cut by bunkmates." Grave robbing was included. Lurie developed a hunger. "A hunger that could not be satisfied...the want grew and grew." Apprehended by the law, he was sent away with other ruffians to the midwest. Securing a job at a mercantile and working with co-workers Donovan and Hobb Mattie, small robberies morphed into stagecoach robberies by the "Mattie Gang". Lurie was now a wanted man, on the run from Marshall John Berger.
Nora Lark felt "unbounded" by husband Emmett's move from town to town "to get away from all his mistakes and shortfalls." Nora was fiercely protective of their homestead in Amargo, Arizona territory. The year was 1893. Emmett, with sons Rob and Dolan, ran a small press, the Sentinel. Nora cared for youngest son Toby, blinded in one eye from a riding accident, wheelchair bound Gramma, and seventeen year old Josie, who communicated with the dead, a clairvoyant of sorts.
In order to create inner peace, both Lurie and Nora needed and found comfort in strange ways. Nora conversed with deceased daughter, Evelyn. This was comforting when Emmett journeyed to Cumberland for water. The family rain barrel was almost depleted. Rob and Dolan go to work at the print shop, or do they? Nora awaits the return of her husband and sons. Lurie's inner peace comes when working as a cameleer. He "talks" with Burke, his trusty camel, one of the pack animals for the U.S. cavalry.
"Inland" by Tea Obreht was filled with the struggles of frontier settlers living inland. The Camel Corps was instrumental in carrying salt, dry goods, even mail. Camels could bear heavier loads and in less time than horses. Author Obreht has taken two seemingly distinct storylines and masterfully connected them in a fascinating, poignant historical novel. Highly recommended.
Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Inland".
Rating: really liked it
I feel sorry for the next book I pick up. When I love a read as much as
Inland, the subsequent story or two usually pales unfairly in the afterglow.
This is a work of historical fiction, a panoramic western in the great tradition of Cather, McCarthy and Portis, but author Téa Obreht is too skilled a writer to be confined by expectations and conventions of genre. She writes with such urgency and empathy, with wonder for her story and compassion for her characters, that this reader was simply swept away in the moment, carried on the current of a brilliant narrative through a parched land where drops of water are as precious as flakes of gold. I think of recent historical fiction by the outstanding William Kent Kruger and Mary Doria Russell, and those novels now seem plodding and clunky compared to the ethereal grace of Obrecht's
Inland.
Two stories unfold, one expanding over four decades, the other in a span of hours, until they come together in the novel's final, gutting pages that left me sobbing the smallest hours of the morning. Lurie, an immigrant and wanted man, hustles west from an Eastern seaport where he landed from Bosnia as a boy. He attaches himself to bands of itinerants and outlaws, trying to outrun his own WANTED poster. He finds himself astride a camel, imported as pack animals by the Army which supposed the beasts well suited to the desert west of the Arizona Territory. His compatriots hail from Greece, Turkey, and the ancient cultures of the Levant, places we don't typically associate with the settlement of the American West. Lurie spins out his long tale to his beloved companion, the stalwart camel, Burke.
Her throat aching with thirst, Nora Lark homesteads with her husband, Emmett, and three sons in "a little mining district between Phoenix and Flagstaff." Emmett is three days late returning with their water supply and the morning after a heated argument with Nora, the two older Lark sons disappear in search of their father. Nora is left on the forlorn property with fragile seven-year-old Toby, stroke-addled Grandma, and her husband's scatterbrained young cousin, Josie, who claims to commune with the spirit world. Nora maintains a heartrending patter with her daughter, Evelyn, who died of heatstroke as an infant, but in conversation is a sophisticated and articulate foil to the cruel, unforgiving land that her family survives in. Nora carries a slow-burning torch for Sheriff Harlan Bell, with whom she has a shadowy unrequited love that is full of longing and empathy. Their few scenes together are full of aching desire, their loneliness epitomizing the beautiful, terrible landscape that shifts between silence and violence in a heartbeat.
Obreht creates a breathless tension as Lurie's and Nora's stories track toward collision. The desiccated land is haunted with ghosts, menaced by drought and starvation, riders appearing on the horizon are unknown as friend or foe until they reach shotgun distance. And yet the cast of characters retains an enchanting humanity with Nora, tough, broken, resolute and loving, the greatest among them.
It's been eight years since Téa Obreht's celebrated debut The Tiger's Wife, which I lauded for its beautiful prose, but lamented the lack of connection to character and the overwrought fabulism.
Inland is the work of an author deeply in touch with her rich cast, allowing them agency in this exquisitely rendered story. I didn't expect to love
Inland as much as I did, given the low rating here. I'm so very glad I ignored the naysayers to discover this unusual, luminous novel.
Also, I love camels.
Rating: really liked it
DNF at 30%. It may be my reading mood, but I've picked this up several times, and I am not connecting with the story nor the characters. The story was just striking me as disjointed.
Rating: really liked it
“We were bound up, you and I…Though it break our hearts, we had as little choice then as we have now.”
This is one of those books that I’ve been dreading writing the review for because nothing I say can really convey what makes it so great. I like literary fiction, but it’s rare that I will pick up anything that’s straight up literature. This particular book interested me for two reasons: the historical, western context, and the promise of supernatural elements.
Inland doesn’t disappoint on either front. The story follows two main characters, Lurie of the Mattie gang, and Nora Lark of a small town called Amargo, in the Arizona territory. It isn’t until the very end that the reader comes to understand how and why these two stories are being told side by side. That’s all I’m saying about that because it’s just better that you know nothing going in.
This is a character driven story, with Nora’s part of it happening over (I think) the course of one day, from morning to night. She often reminisces on things that happened in the past, her relationship with her husband and people in the town, the birth and lives of her children, etc. These parts can be very slow, but they all contribute to painting the picture of Nora’s life and the people in it.
Life in Arizona isn’t easy and every day has been a struggle. There are a few supernatural elements to her story as well. Her niece-by-marriage, Josie, is a medium, conducting seances with the dead, and her son Toby has been seeing a strange beast roaming their land. Nora believes both things are just figments of wild imaginations.
“And what did you ever learn from me–save to keep to yourself, and look over your shoulder?”
In contrast to Nora, we have Lurie. He’s a Turkish immigrant that is orphaned as a child and eventually falls in with the Mattie gang. He gets on the wrong side of the law early in the book and we follow his story as he runs from Marshall Berger and from his past. Lurie also has a supernatural ability to see and speak to the dead. If they touch him, he feels their last wants, and they consume him as his own needs.
The contrast in their stories is brilliant.
Between the two of these characters, it’s easy to assume Lurie would be the least likable, and that the reader would come to care deeply for Nora, the struggling, “innocent”, ranch-wife. But Obreht brilliantly turns this assumption on it’s head by making Nora the more unlikeable of the two. She can sometimes be cruel to those around her, including her husband and children, but most of all her niece, and she holds some clear prejudices against the local native population. Meanwhile, Lurie proves himself to be a man capable of caring deeply for others, and a man, maybe, searching for redemption.
“The longer I live…the more I have come to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions.”
Despite it’s slow pacing, the book is so hard to put down. Different little mysteries are introduced along the way, while other interesting little connections and reveals are being made (not between Nora and Lurie, but within the narrative of each of their separate lives). Different story elements and characters in the story return at the most unexpected times, keeping the reader surprised throughout. It’s a dramatic story that feels perfectly mundane, and I’m still in awe of it.
Lurie’s parts are written in second person, though I won’t tell you who he is addressing. The writing itself is gorgeous. It isn’t as impactful as say, The Mere Wife, but it’s emotional, and often left me feeling a little wistful. By the end of it, I was in tears.
This review has probably rambled on for far too long already, and I haven’t remotely done the book justice. Just know if any part of this story or review appeals to you at all, it’s well worth picking up and reading through to the end, where the reveals and realizations will surprise and haunt you for a long time to come. Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC for review.
Rating: really liked it
Totally Hip Video Book Review of “Inland”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/...
Rating: really liked it
Unfortunately, this is going in the DNF pile. I am just not connecting with this at all. There are parts of this that I just marvel at - it is written so beautifully. The rest I'm left scratching my head. I never read the author's heralded debut, but I was anxious to read this as the summary sounded different and interesting. Plus, THAT COVER!!
Sadly, I'm far enough in and I can tell it's not going to get any better (based on my personal preference). It's far too slow (nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea at the moment), and while beautifully written, I am very, very bored. I am reminded of Lincoln In The Bardo, (that was also a DNF for me as well) and that isn't a bad comparison, but that book also just wasn't for me. The reviews seem to be all over the map on this, so I suggest you try it for yourself as your opinion my vary wildly from mine.
Thank you to Netgalley, Random House and Tea Obreht for the opportunity to read this and provide an honest review.
Review Date: 8/15/19
Publication Date: 8/13/19
Rating: really liked it
Highly recommended - full review here: https://openlettersreview.com/posts/i...
Rating: really liked it
This memorable novel is my introduction to Tea Obreht, and I read it free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Random House. The combination of word smithery and whimsy creates the purest literary magic, and I recommend it to anyone that has a high vocabulary level and stamina. It is for sale now.
The tale takes place just after the American Civil War, and the narrative is divided between two characters, Lurie and Nora. Lurie begins his life in Arkansas; he is orphaned early and the man that takes him in is a grave robber that uses Lurie and other boys to assist him in his nightly plundering. Lurie grows up hard, fast, and mean; he wishes that he did not see and feel the dead, but he does, and most of all he senses their cravings. I am immediately drawn by his second person narrative as he relates his memories to someone named Burke. You don’t see many writers use the second person, and I am curious as to who Burke is. When I find out, I am even more fascinated.
Nora is one of the early (Caucasian) Western settlers, and here Obreht uses the third person omniscient. Nora is unlike any Western protagonist I have ever read, and it is delightful to see the way this author turns stereotypes and caricatures squarely upside down. Nora has her hands full, trying to care for the aged, wheelchair bound Gramma; fighting a political battle in the press that is run by her husband and sons, none of whom she has seen lately; and carrying on a running dialogue with the ghost of her daughter Evelyn, who died in infancy. To add insult to injury she is saddled with Josie, a relative Emmett insisted they must take in. Nora is carrying a heavy emotional load, but the slow revelation of the secrets that weigh her down and the way that these impact the decisions she makes and the way she solves problems is completely convincing. Whereas Lurie’s narrative is mostly about setting, Nora’s is about character. Both are rendered brilliantly.
I initially rated this novel 4.5 stars because of a few small areas where historical revisionism has crept in, but ultimately it is too fine a work to deny all five stars. I am reluctant to say more because the surprises start early, so to relate details that occur even twenty percent of the way in feels like a disservice both to the reader and the writer.
One feature that is present throughout both of the narratives is thirst, and it’s related so well that I found myself downing extra water in sympathy and thanking my lucky stars that I live in Seattle rather than somewhere dusty and drought-stricken. In fact, there are places in Nora’s narrative where she is busy with other tasks or discussions of an urgent nature and I find myself telling Nora to just go ahead and ask the person she’s talking to for a sip of water. Nora won’t do it because she is proud and self-reliant, and the fact that I am already talking to the character instead of the author tells you how convincing the story is.
The reader is also advised that it’s a violent, gritty tale, particularly in the beginning but in other places also, and it’s loaded with triggers. To tell it otherwise would be to deny history, but if you are a mealtime reader or avoiding harsh prose for other reasons, it’s worth knowing. But I also think that the whimsy is all the sweeter for it.
Perhaps one of every ten novels I read becomes that book, the one that I can’t stop talking about. My spouse understands that to pass through a room when I am reading it is to guarantee he will be hijacked, at least momentarily, because I am either going to paraphrase an interesting tidbit or read a particularly arresting passage out loud. This works well for me, though, because I find myself with more uninterrupted reading time. Inland is that sort of book. Highly recommended.
Rating: really liked it
Time doesn't change,
nor do times.
Only things inside time change,
Things you will believe, and things you won't. ~ James Galvin, "Belief"
There are so many elements in this novel that I enjoyed:
- interesting characters;
- unbelievable plot;
- gripping prose;
- picturesque atmosphere.
- the
noire factor.
- part of the Arizona and New Mexiko history
- unique voice of the author.
Two main characters: Around 1856:
Lurie, the Turkish boy who came over with his father to America. His dad would not make it any further than the docks.
Lurie:
Our mattress, I remember, was stained. I stood on the stairs to watch the Coachman load my father into his wagon. When they drove off the Landlady put her hand on my head and let me linger. The evening downpour had withdrawn, so a sunset reddened the street. The horses looked ablaze. After that, my father never came to me again, not in the waters, not even in dreams.Lurie would become the coachman's sidekick, selling dead bodies from the boarding houses, and when they became in short supply, would rob the graves. After that he became part of the Mattie gang and soon appeared on posters all over the country, with marshal John Berger short on their heals.
Donovan Michael Mattie and Hobb were his partners in crime. Both would have a distinct influence on his life, even after their deaths.
But then: Hadji Ali (Hi Jolly for short, but born Philip Tedro) walked onto American soil with his camel entourage. Seid, the formidable alpha camel could communicate in four languages. English was not one of them. Yet. With Jolly came Yiorgios (George from Hella, Greece), soft-faced Mehmet Halil (called Lilo by all) and Jolly's cousin, Mimico Tedro,
a wiry, battlesome kid who likewise spliced his native tongue with French at speed. The cook, a freeman, was named Absalom Reading, or
old Ab.
Lurie would become known as Misafir, and his camel would be named Burk (for his fearsome gargling buuuurk).
They were all destined for Camp Verde in the company of
Edward Fitgerald Beale: bushwacker, explorer, lieutenant, compatriot and brother-in-arms of Kit Garson.
Nora Lark - The redoubtable young matriarch of the Lark family.
Amargo. Arizona. 1893.
Emmett, Nora, and their boys lived and were happy here, was engraved into the wood frame of the window sill by Emmett.
Nora was not so sure about that.
...she doubted whether any of them could stand before the court of heaven and truthfully lay claim to happiness.
What about Evelyn, their little girl who resided beneath a headstone on their property, Nora thought. Why wasn't her name mentioned. But there they were, three boys: Rob, Nolan and little Toby. And then there was Emmett's ancient mother, Missus Harriet, disabled in a wheelchair from a stroke, and Emmett's young niece, Josie Kincaid, who communicated - openly - with the dead.
It was Toby who saw traces of the beast first. Nora couldn't. She said she saw nothing. But she wasn't looking.
What we see with our hearts is much truer than what we see with our eyes, Nora believed. Those words would come to haunt her.
Toby did not believe his mama. She promised him she wasn't lying.
Lies cut holes in the fabric of Heaven, Toby, and make all the angels fall out. Nobody believed young Toby about the beast which arrived to roam their property...
They all had one thing in common: a thirst for non-existent water in the inhospitable drought-stricken territory of Arizona and New Mexico. And in just one day, one night, and one early morning, everything will change forever for all of them in the vast open spaces of Amargo.
COMMENTSThis is certainly one of the best reads by far this year. However, too many back stories and too wordy infomation-drops slowed down the experience considerably. The author is a super brilliant wordsmith. The plot contains so many nuances, it will take a while to absorb it all. It is, for me, one of those novels that can be reread to capture more of the magic. And yes, traces of magic realism. Kind of.
Noire from beginning to end, with little emotional attachment negotiated among the characters or between the characters and the readers. A kind of clinical, weird experience. The impact is still huge.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars. And honestly only 4.5 stars because I would occasionally find myself wishing Lurie would hurry it up so I could get back to Nora and I would need to go back and read it again with a little less impatience to more accurately judge the Lurie sections.
There was not much of a reason for me to power through this book. I didn't read Obreht's previous novel. I do not have any particular affection for Westerns. I prefer faster reads with a quick pace on audio. It was, honestly, only because I saw that Anna Chlumsky was one of the readers and I have always liked her and I figured what the hell. (Chlumsky absolutely crushes it, btw.)
This is a book you have to stick with for a while. It has two disparate narrators, and while both are in the still-unsettled west, they don't even take place during the same time period, so there is nothing beyond a general setting to tie them together. Lurie is the kind of character we are used to in Westerns, a man without a home or a family, roving the territory, on the run from the law and his past. Then we meet Nora, she isn't an unfamiliar character, but she is usually in the background of these stories. The faithful wife and mother, out making a homestead, working to keep her house running, her land providing, and her family fed.
While Lurie's narrative meanders through time, Nora's is as focused and sharp as a knife. It is so masterfully done I would like to chart it out. Her story only lasts a day (maybe two?) but along with drawing us oh so slowly through the hours, Obreht also slowly imparts more context and history and information about what has gotten Nora to this particular day and why it is such an important one. To me, it was quite clear early on that something very bad was going to happen or maybe had already happened. I felt a sense of palpable dread in Nora's story, knowing something was wrong, but only having a few pieces of the puzzle. I swear it is as meticulously done as any mystery novel, one of the most impressively suspenseful books in recent memory. Of course, living out in a homestead in the Arizona territory in the late 1800's, there is always a fine line between stability and catastrophe, it takes so little to lose everything.
But even without all that, I enjoyed every second spent in Nora's company. I loved her steely outlook, her prickly manner. I felt deeply how much she had been changed by her life in the desert but how little room she had for resentment or anger because survival itself took so much work. Nora hides things from herself to get by, we follow her through the day as she goes through it. The previous night she argued with her sons, but we barely hear of it in the morning. She has too much to do, she knows no other way to get through a day than to move forward ignoring the pains of the past, that threaten to overwhelm her if she gives them room in her heart. The slow reveals of Nora's life are not just a narrative device, they're who she is as a character. Being so close to her inner thoughts means that we experience the way she does. When a calamity befalls her, when she is in physical pain, she insists on moving forward because she simply has no choice but to do so. It is a truly immersive experience into the difficult life of a woman in the West, giving you all the little details of a day along with the massive undertakings survival requires.
Eventually, Lurie and Nora's stories come together, though it is to Obreht's credit that even if you have a suspicion of how it's going to go, even if you feel certain these stories will connect, it is only at the actual moment they collide that any of it becomes at all clear. It all culminates in an amazing, sustained climax, that keeps its intensity for a truly astounding period of time, finally softening to an emotionally fulfilling ending that takes all the pieces and puts them together beautifully.
I'm bowled over by this book. The audio was fantastic, both narrators fully inhabited their characters. Chlumsky's gristly Nora spoke to my soul. I get what all the fuss over Obreht is about and I will definitely be reading The Tiger's Wife soon.
Rating: really liked it
Téa Obreht burst onto the literary scene in 2011 with her debut novel,
The Tiger’s Wife, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Orange Prize. I thought it a remarkable first novel and have been eagerly (and impatiently) waiting for her follow-up. I never expected that the follow-up would be a historical novel of the American West and I imagine other readers of
The Tiger’s Wife might share that surprise. No worry, her reimagined vision of the western (and a little-known piece of history) is stunning, the eight-year wait well worth it. The writing here is gorgeous, Obreht fulfilling all the promise of her debut. Her description of a beautiful, but often unforgiving landscape is astonishing. I felt the heat and experienced the thirst of the parched, drought-stricken terrain. Her imagery is nothing short of brilliant and so necessary in a novel that is as much about the land as it is the people. As far as plot goes, to reveal even a little may be to reveal too much. I’ll only say there is a steady buildup of suspense, a sense of foreboding, accompanied with wonderful twists and surprises. I was left dumbstruck at the end and any wavering between a 4 and 5 star review was determined in those final pages. Obreht is simply a superb story-teller and delivers a sweeping tale rooted in time and place and the ghosts of an American West.
I want to thank Goodreads giveaways and Random House for this ARC.
