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Published Sep 2023
272 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.
Lauren Groff's new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.
"Extraordinary… Groff builds and maintains suspense on multiple levels, while offering an unflinching portrayal of her heroine's desperation and will to survive. This is a triumph." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Groff's seventh book, a captivating survival story, starts off running….this wholly enveloping book has … deep examinations of faith, dominion, and human nature; Groff's seemingly joyfully related, seamless period prose; and the time-collapsing sense of reading a text channeled directly from the mind of a long-ago-living, breathing woman facing extraordinary circumstances." —Booklist (starred review)
"Groff's imaginative journey into a distant time and place is powered by a thrumming engine… Immersion in the girl's experience provides a virtual vacation from civilization … The writing is inspired, the imaginative power near mystic." —Kirkus Reviews
"A fittingly adventurous effort from one of our best writers, but one yielding the growing sense that we've seen that tree before." —Library Journal
"Combines visceral detail and magisterial sweep … Lauren Groff's fifth novel, set in Virginia in the early 17th century, is a classic study of solitude and survival that stars a teenage girl fleeing starvation—and the scene of a crime." —Shelf Awareness
"Illustrate[s] a fluid, almost cyclical understanding of history, and faith's sticky place within it." —Elle
This information about The Vaster Wilds was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Lucy Schaeffer
Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies' Choice Award, France's Grand Prix de l'Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.
Author Interview
Link to Lauren Groff's Website
Name Pronunciation
Lauren Groff: "Groff" rhymes with "off."
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