Lost Nation — Jeffrey Lent

The acclaimed author's “mesmerizing tale” of a young man and woman who struggle to survive in the remote, disputed territory of 19th-century New Hampshire (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

With an oxcart full of rum, a man known as Blood travels through the wild country of New England toward an ungoverned territory called the Indian Stream -- a land where the luckless or outlawed can make a fresh start. Blood is a man of contradictions, of learning and wisdom, but also a man with a secret past that has scorched his soul. Intending to establish himself as a prosperous trader, he brings with him Sally, a sixteen-year-old girl he won from her mother in a game of cards.

Blood and Sally's arrival in the Indian Stream triggers an escalating series of clashes that soon destroy the master/servant bond between them, offering both a second chance with life. But as the conflicts within the community attract the attention of outside authorities, Blood becomes a target for those in need of a scapegoat, forcing him to confront dreaded apparitions from his past, while Sally is offered a final escape.

“In intensely charged prose very reminiscent of Faulkner's,” Lost Nation delves beneath the bright, promising veneer of early-nineteenth-century New England to reveal a startling, violent parable of individualism and nationhood (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

“A rousing tale that will surely please the readers of his first, bestselling novel, In the Fall.” -- Publishers Weekly

“Jeffrey Lent has quietly created some of the finest novels of our new century.” -- Ron Rash

“Sentence by sentence rural New England comes alive, and Lent's language draws you in like a clear stream in summer.” -- Tim Gautreaux