A strange, strange tale so full of hardship but also balanced by moments of real beauty. There is starvation, disease, punishing cold, desolation, violence and sublime but unforgiving terraines, but also startling moments of clarity, of profound realisation, and deep connection with the natural world. The story opens with our protagonist, known for most of the book simply as ‘the girl’, fleeing a fort out into a desolate and cold night, where threat (real or imagined) lurks in every corner, but this is still infinitely better than what she is leaving behind. As she ventures forth into the landscape, resourceful beyond measure, her story is slowly revealed. We are several centuries back, our girl having come over from England to the New World accompanying those who sought a better life – but what meets them is not better, and she is eventually left with no choice but to flee, bringing us on this brutal and revelatory journey with her.

A uniquely crafted meditation on the resilience of the human spirit, on what we are capable of under duress and when some innate force, a belief that we are moving towards something, is driving us; on the chance element contained within any journey; reflections on love, loss, loneliness, and the human need for connection and companionship; questions of faith, and when faith is questioned; of our impact on, and true place in, the natural world. The writing is visceral to an extreme, with no holding back particularly on the physical hardships endured. This is an absolute gut-punch of a novel in the best possible way. It makes for difficult, even devastating, reading at times but it’s been awhile since I read a story that had such an impact on me, and that stayed with me for so long after. Groff is an absolute craftswoman with her words, a master of language and storytelling that lends her writing an almost fable-like quality, while still being very much of this world. I loved this, and cannot wait to hear the conversations unfolding around this book.

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The Vaster Wilds is published by Hutchinson Heinemann on September 21st 2023.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC.

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Lauren Groff is the author of six books of fiction, the most recent the novel MATRIX (September 2021). Her work has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, and France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne, was a three time finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and twice for the Kirkus Prize, and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Prize, the Southern Book Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Prize. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her work has been translated into over thirty languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.