NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife returns with “a bracingly epic and imaginatively mythic journey across the American West” (Entertainment Weekly).NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • Esquire • Real Simple • Good Housekeeping • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library … Housekeeping • Town & Country • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews • Library Journal • BookPage
In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life—her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home.
Meanwhile, Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. The way in which Lurie’s death-defying trek at last intersects with Nora’s plight is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel.
Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht’s talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely—and unforgettably—her own.
Praise for Inland
“As it should be, the landscape of the West itself is a character, thrillingly rendered throughout. . . . Here, Obreht’s simple but rich prose captures and luxuriates in the West’s beauty and sudden menace. Remarkable in a novel with such a sprawling cast, Obreht also has a poetic touch for writing intricate and precise character descriptions.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
“Beautifully wrought.”—Vanity Fair
“Obreht is the kind of writer who can forever change the way you think about a thing, just through her powers of description. . . . Inland is an ambitious and beautiful work about many things: immigration, the afterlife, responsibility, guilt, marriage, parenthood, revenge, all the roads and waterways that led to America. Miraculously, it’s also a page-turner and a mystery, as well as a love letter to a camel, and, like a camel, improbable and splendid, something to happily puzzle over at first and take your breath away at the end.”—Elizabeth McCracken, O: The Oprah Magazine
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A good read for a rainy day.
This book was, at first, difficult for me to follow. The two parallel stories seemed so oddly disconnected that I couldn’t believe that they would be woven together. I am glad that I persevered, however, because I truly came to love both fabulous stories.
Tea Obreht’s ‘Inland’ is a masterpiece of originality. It employs little-known historical fact against the backdrop of a developing West, particularly Arizona, during two separate time periods. While early on it leaves the reader wondering how the two stories will intertwine, the outcome is well worth waiting for. Highly recommended.
The author’s highly acclaimed narrative style simply got in the way of my enjoyment. I found that halfway in, I still was missing key characterization information which I probably read, but forgot in the effort to keep track of things. Perhaps for this reason, characters who were intended to be complex and complicated became merely confusing. I generally appreciate beautiful writing and originality, but this was a toughh one.
Lots of jumping around in time and place made this story a bit hard to follow, but it was interesting enough to keep trying.
At the turn of the century, deep in the middle of the Arizona desert, Nora waits for her missing husband to return with water. Racked with thirst, Nora talks to her dead infant while tending to her vision-impaired son and her husband’s superstitious niece. Two older sons are getting into trouble instead of running their dad’s newspaper.
At the same time, a haunted immigrant Muslim ‘Turk’ and his comrade camel recall their many adventures with the army and running from the law.
This wild and original idea for a Western tale delves into new territory filled with desert and thirst, lawmen and murder, secret desires and secret liaisons, ghosts, and alien monsters.
Obreht is a masterful stylist and Inland is brimming with quotable lines from descriptive to insightful.
Stowaway burrs dimpled her hem. ~from Inland by Tea Obreht
The longer I live, Burke, 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.~from Inland by Tea Obreht
Life’s happiness is always a famine, and what little we find interest nobody. What use is it, the happiness of some stranger? At worst, it driver onlookers to envy; at best, it bored them. ~from Inland by Tea Obreht
Where did Obreht come up with the idea behind this unusual story? History.
Obreht was inspired by real people and events. The U.S. Army did have a plan to employ camels and camel drivers, feral camels did roam the west after the plan fell through. Hi Jolly in the novel was one of the camel drivers.
What a masterful handling of material and plotting! What gorgeous prose!
I won a copy of the book on LibraryThing. My review is fair and unbiased.
Kind of a shaggy dog story with no real pay-off. Lurie’s storyline was agonizingly boring. Lots of potential but ultimately boring and unrewarding
A slow burner. I kept waiting for something to happen or for things to explain themselves. I am still not sure what the gist of the story was. Maybe I missed something?
As an author who writes about the Mojave Desert, I have often heard of Lieutenant Beale’s experiment with using camels along the 38th parallel. This fictionalized account, told not in dry, historical terms but from the point of view of those at ground level who actually took care of the camels, was fascinating. The companion narrative of a frontier family near Prescott Arizona, Ms. Obreht interlaces with the experiences of the camel wranglers is equally compelling. Tea Obreht is a skilled user of language, and she has produced a richly detailed novel.
A long time ago, I read Tea Obrecht’s novel, The Tiger’s Wife and fell in love with the beautiful writing and wonderful story. When I saw the author’s name on a soon-to-be released book, I immediately pre-ordered it and set it as my book club pick for August without even reading what it was about. To keep the surprise, I never looked at early reviews and never read any summaries. I wanted to experience this book with no other opinions coloring it. Imagine my surprise when the book arrived and I crawled under the covers with it to discover it was a WESTERN. Hahahahaha! I couldn’t believe it! What made an author from Serbia decide to write an American western novel?!?! Honestly, this almost stopped me from moving forward, but since I had chosen it for book club, I had no choice but to move forward and drop my preconceived notions of westerns. I am SO glad that I did.
This novel does, admittedly, start slow. I wasn’t sure how it was all going to pull together for most of the book. You follow two stories, one of an outlaw turned cameleer and one of a grieving mother running a homestead during a drought. You don’t really see how the two stories come together until the end. Both stories are beautifully written and very engaging, but when what seemed disjointed came together, I was wowed.
In the end, I LOVED the book and definitely recommend it.
I received a free electronic copy of this novel from Netgalley, Tea Obreht, and Random House Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work.
Inland is a historical novel that brings to mind an excellent fairy tale. There are times you will saunter to the next step in the story or face great leaps of motion and noise that take you by surprise. There are two stories – several Asian camel drovers and mounts come to the United States by ship. Some wise investors think they would be useful – profitable – to handle crossing the wild and wicked deserts on the way to California. By the time they arrive the men are on to some other fine scheme, there is no one there to meet the ship, so we have men and camels pretty much discarded in the southern port with no common language, no money, no idea where they were or where they needed to go. Camels, of course, would make wonderful freight haulers if a person could just portray that knowledge and if one knew how to get to the great desert areas of the west – the staked plains with ten or fifteen days between palatable water. And of course, camels were pretty frightening to residents of the south and western United States in that day and age. Most folks had not even seen a picture of a camel and those that had could not put the size of the beast into perspective. Most of these tales are told by the nicknamed ‘hirsute Levantine’ (though not a Turk) from Smyrna known as Misafir, as he talks to his camel Burke. And travel they do, across the south, across Texas Territory, and into Arizona, parts of Oklahoma, Maybe a little of Old Mexico and New Mexico.
Then we have the story of a family who chose to settle in the Territory of Arizona in the 1890s. The father Emmett runs a small newspaper in the town of Amargo, a few tents and small buildings nestled along Big Fork Creek. Mother Nora does her best to keep her family fed and clothed and handle the farm chores – they have sheep and sometimes chickens – and grow and preserve all she can in the garden when there is water in the creek. Lately, there hasn’t been water anywhere in Arizona Territory, and Emmett is three days late bringing home a shipment of much-needed water. Still living at home are their sons – Rob and Dolan in their teens and baby Toby, 8 or 9. Emmitt’s mother, Gramma, is confined to a wheelchair since a stroke years ago. Josie is a teen, an orphaned girl of Emmett’s family, his ward and occult cousin. Harlan is the sheriff of Amargo, and Crace is the wealthy, heartless rancher stealing all the land and water.
Inland is a good story, filled with word pictures that will keep you smiling and a mystery of noble proportions. This is a book I am pleased to recommend to friends and family.
When I requested this book, I was hoping it was going to be a historical fiction chronicling early pioneer life and/or exploration in Arizona. I was very disappointed that it was not. It was confusing at times but I found the second half of the book was slightly better than the first half. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I will give it 2.5 stars.