Join us as the acclaimed author of The Last Ranger and The Dog Stars shares his new novel about two men—friends since boyhood—who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country wracked by bewildering violence. Peter Heller will be interviewed by Joe Donahue of WAMC / Northeast Public Radio.

“A Maine camping trip turns into a fight for survival in this meditative dystopian thriller from Heller….Despite the high stakes, Heller gives the narrative plenty of space to breathe, allowing him to cast a haunting, immersive spell as his heroes traverse the ruined landscape.… The result is a wilderness adventure with real emotional depth.” —Publishers Weekly

Every year Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to northern Maine, where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much from their long friendship unspoken. Although the state has convulsed all summer with secession mania—a mania that had simultaneously spread across other states—Jess and Storey figure it’s a fight reserved for legislators or, worse-case scenario, folks in the capitol. But after two weeks hunting moose off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked to find a bridge blown apart, buildings burned to the ground, and bombed-out cars abandoned on the road.

Trying to make sense of the sudden destruction all around them, the men set their sights on finding their way home, dragging a wagon across bumpy dirt roads, ransacking boats left in the lakes, and dodging men who are armed—secessionists or military, they cannot tell—as they seek a path to safety. And then, a startling discovery, a child in the cabin of a boat, drastically alters their path and the stakes of their escape. Drenched with the beauty of the natural world, and attuned to the specific cadences of male friendship, even here at the edge of doom, Heller’s magisterial new novel is both a blistering warning of a divided country’s political strife and an ode to the salvation of our chosen families.

Peter Heller is the best-selling author of The Guide, The River, Celine, The Painter, and The Dog Stars, which has been published in twenty-two languages. Heller is also the author of four nonfiction books, including Kook: What Surfing Taught Me About Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, which was awarded the National Outdoor Book Award. He holds an MFA in poetry and fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives in Denver, Colorado.

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