Published by Random House on August 13, 2019

After The Tiger’s Wife, a novel that mixes reality with myth in a Balkan country, it might seem odd that Téa Obreht would write an American western. Yet westerns are all about myth and Obeht has given the genre a twist. The ghosts who haunt the main characters are in keeping with the dead who populate the stories told by characters in The Tiger’s Wife.

The living characters in Inland arrive at stark truths in the desolate lands through which they roam. One character comes “to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions.” Another character believes that “God, in His infinite wisdom, made it so that to live, generally, is to wound another. And He made every man blind to his own weapons, and too short-living to do anything but guard jealously his own small, wasted way.”

Want is a theme explored through several characters, one of whom concludes that it is best to always be a little discontent, because “too much contentment is apt to make you think you can have more. And worse, make you wonder: when will it be taken away?” The two central characters, Nora and Lurie, are both struck by the “vast and immutable want everybody, dead or alive, carried with them all the time.” A related theme is the rootlessness of men who believe that if they keep moving, what they want will be found at the next destination, while rooted women stay behind to raise children and build a home.

The story is also founded on the timeless theme that those who hold power will do anything they can to retain it. They reveal secrets, they spread lies, they make and carry out threats. Speaking truth to power is nothing but a slogan when the powerful have the ability to destroy truth tellers.

All of these themes are given context in a story that moves around in time and place as it chronicles the tumultuous lives of two main characters. Nora moves from Iowa to the Arizona Territory to be with her husband, Emmett Lark, who has taken on unmanageable debt to acquire a newspaper in a small town. Nora lost a daughter and lives in constant fear that she will lose her sons. She carries guilt and keeps a secret about that death from all but one person, a man who is not her husband. By 1893, in the midst of a drought and a raging dispute between two newspapers, she fears she will lose Emmett, who left in search of water and has not returned, leaving her to be comforted by the sheriff for whom she has long felt a guilty affection.

Nora’s life is shaped by hardship but she keeps resentment at bay by finding purpose in hard work. In her mind, she talks with her dead daughter, who ages as if she were alive, giving Nora “a glimpse of how all of life would have unfolded had the girl survived.”

Living with Nora is a young woman named Josie, who claims to communicate with the dead. She is adored by Nora’s youngest son and might be the future wife of an older son, although Nora treats her with contempt. Josie and Nora’s youngest son are convinced not just that ghosts walk among them, but that a demonic beast is lurking in the woods. Nora is never quite certain whether Josie has a psychic gift or a wild imagination ­­­­­— the evidence could go either way.

The second central character is Lurie, whose story begins decades before Nora’s. Lurie was born in Herzegovina to a father who is always angered to be mistaken for a Turk. At the age of six, running for his life in his father’s company, Lurie travels to New York, where he is soon orphaned. His adventures growing up teach him to be a thief; one of his tutors is the ghost of a boy named Hobb Mattie. In concert with Hobb’s living brother during the mid-1850s, Lurie regularly appears on Wanted posters in the South, where rebellion against the law of the North is celebrated. His nemesis is Marshal John Berger. Fleeing from Berger, Lurie makes his way to the West with a caravan of camels, intended as pack animals for the infantry.

The conflict that drives the plot concerns a proposal to move the county seat from Amargo, where Emmett and Nora live, to a town that is lobbying to be connected to the railroad. The loser of that conflict is doomed to remain forever inland. For reasons Nora does not understand, Emmett refuses to take on the rival town, its newspaper, and its most powerful rancher. When Emmet fails to return home after going in search of water, the conflict takes on a new dimension and leads to a series of surprising revelations.

The plot is engrossing and the way the two stories tie together is completely unexpected. Inland might not be quite as astonishing as The Tiger’s Wife, but Obreht again gives her readers the gift of luminous prose and again conjures a plot that is unlike anything I have read before. At 33, she is a relatively young writer, but she has an old soul. Eight years passed between The Tiger’s Wife and Inland. Since quality should always trump quantity, I will gladly wait another eight years to read her next book.

RECOMMENDED

Didn't hate it. The writing, especially at the beginning of this book, was lyrical and at times compelling, but the storyline failed to grab my interest. Thank you, Netgalley, for this arc.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The story follows two main characters - Lurie, a young man on the run from the law after falling in with a group of stagecoach robbers; Nora - a housewife in a new AZ homestead whose husband/two sons ran a printing press. The book switches between their two troubled lives as they struggle for survival on the frontier: Lurie fighting to etch out a survival while evading the Marshall and Nora trying to stretch out her scant supply of water until her husband's return. Both are haunted by ghosts, Lurie by a cast of ghosts from his pasts that make various demands of him, such as kleptomaniac compulsions. In contrast, Nora converses with the ghost of her dead daughter as she moves about the homestead.

I wanted desperately to like this book. I fell in love with Tiger's Wife (her debut novel) when it first came out. I think partially in terms of topics of interest (as a doctor, I connected more with The Tiger's Wife), I found it difficult to stay interested in the Western setting. I also struggled with switching between the two sets of characters - I found that I would become more interested in one set only to have the characters switch. I have never minded every chapter switching but switching between sections of chapters felt more difficult to read and I had to remind myself of the characters every time I switched.

I think that there was a lot that was interesting with the elements of a ghost story but ultimately I just couldn't push through. 2 star review for the gorgeous writing and interesting plot premise. Maybe I will try and come back at a later date but I found the setting and the POV switching to be too difficult to read.

Recommended if: you enjoy Western settings, ghost stories, good writing (and don't mind POV switching)

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

[[DNF at 31%]]

WOW! I'm a fan of westerns but this is the first I've read told from a woman's perspective. It will stir up feelings like only an great book can. Tea Obreht has given us a world and it's characters that are so real you can see them in your mind. As the family struggles and circumstances build, you will try to guess where the story is going. You will be surprised. A very emotional story that reminds me of Cherokee America.

*2.5 stars rounding down.

Having absolutely loved The Tiger's Wife, Obreht's next work was long awaited. I went into this blind, without reading the blurb. Set in 1893, the novel opens with Lurie, a wondering orphan seeking his place in the world. He joins a misfit gang and so begins his life on the run. It alternates with Nora's world inland trying to homestead with her family in the harsh Arizona territory. Where I expected deep and meaningful prose, I instead was gifted with a whole lot of rambling, and a whole lot of nothing going on. I kept waiting and waiting for things to happen. Sure, there were little skiffs here and there as Lurie makes his way across the west. But, Nora's story was utterly boring.

There is a lot of description of the environment. So much so, I almost started to feel like it had something to do with the beast. Oh yeah, this mysterious "beast" that they talk about every now and again. It's marketed as central to the story. But, it almost just didn't fit into the story. Until the end. The lead up, if you can call it that was weak. The ending was mediocre at best. The only moving prose really came at the end with Lurie. Overall, this unfortunately fell flat when I was expecting so much more.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

This is an unusual and at time challenging read. Set primarily in 1893 Arizona, it's told from the perspectives of Nora, a woman coping with incredible challenges, and Lurie, a criminal who is transporting a camel named Burke for the US Army. Nora's family ran out of water and her husband has gone to look for it, leaving her to care for her children and gramma- all of whom have physical or emotional issues. To cope, she talks to her daughter Evelyn, who is dead. Lurie has a wider range of ghosts to talk with and about- orphaned at 6, he made his way into adulthood with both petty and bigger crimes. Obrecht has written a tale where these characters intersect- and it's believable. It is not a straight line narrative and there are times when it didn't entirely make sense, at least to me. That's ok because the writing is amazing. I was not familiar with the camel corps - so it was a bonus to learn about it as well as about the hardships of living in Arizona during a drought. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This is quite different from the Tiger's Wife and it's excellent.

Not nearly as captivating as The Tiger’s Wife.
While the writing is solid, the story itself feels overworked. I’m not a fan of multiple viewpoints or plot lines, and with the complexity of detail and number of characters in each, Inland begins to feel stalled and unnecessarily heavy.

Inland is a very unique tale of the American West, spiced with fantastical elements that bring this book over the edge of traditional westerns and into a category of its own.

Lurie is an outlaw gone straight. He's haunted by ghosts from his past, all of whom want something from him. Lurie ends up on a quest across America to escape his ghosts and fulfill an unexpected relationship. .

Nora is a hardworking, no-nonsense woman trying to eke out a living with her family in the dessicating Arizona Territory. Her husband left days ago to find water in hopes of bringing some relief to his family and their land. Her two oldest sons took off after a serious argument. Only her youngest son remains with Nora, and he is seeing signs of a "great beast" roaming their land.

How Lurie's path intersects Nora's is the fantastical twist that brings this book beyond the realm of everyday fiction and into the spectacular.

An interesting look at western US during the late 1800’s. Camels played a role, there was a lot of violence with a little love sprinkled in. I learned from this but did not really enjoy it. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I went into this book completely cold and after the first few pages braced myself for what I expected to be a slog. Not through any fault of the writing which is flawless, but because it unfolded as a frontier tale of untethered lives fully steeped in the language or an older, first-hand accounting which aside from being outside my general area of interest, I expected to be difficult to wrangle in. However, I quickly became accustomed to the style and driven to discover how the stories of the two main narrators would intersect. I found the writing style to be a sincere vehicle for the protagonists emotions rather than a device. Switching between the stories of Lurie, an orphaned, oft-troubled youth set free in the west and Nora, a pioneer of the New Mexico territory going about her day on her last cup of water, Inland tells the story of longing, how it works inside us and how we inhabit our wants as if they are our home.

Inland by Tea Obreht is a novel set in the Arizona Territory in 1893 and tells the dual narrative of a frontierswoman named Nora and that of an outlaw cameleer named Lurie. I will probably be in the minority on my opinion, but I just did not love this book. The story was a very slow build and was a struggle for me to follow and at times frustrating because of the switching narratives. Obreht did a beautiful job with bringing it all together in the end so I will say this one is worth seeing through.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for an advanced reader's copy in exchange for my honest review.

This unfortunately was not for me. I requested this because I enjoyed her debut novel but this one was just too slow. It took me longer than usual to get through it and life is too short to continue reading a book you just aren’t enjoying.

I thank you for the opportunity to read and review this book. This author was new to me and I was not let down. It was a great story and very well written. The characters were easy to relate to and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend this to everyone!!

I completed Inland by Téa Obreht and this was an interesting read, I didn’t love it or hate it. I enjoyed the magical realism and the two persons POV, but the pace was crazy slow and at about 200 pages in it picked up a bit. I am working on a better review so lookout for that on goodreads. I’m not sure I would recommend this one.

This is my first Téa Obreht read and based on the goodreads reviews her first novel The Tiger’s Wife is highly praised. Definitely going to check that out. Thank you @randomhouse and netgalley for gifting me this copy.

Magical realism and historical fiction converge in this dual narrative tale filled with sweeping landscapes, myths, adventure, and hardship that is ultimately about love, loss, family, and survival.

Two complex narratives lead us on a journey across the drought-ridden American West frontier in 1893 and tell the story of Inland. The first spans decades and takes us around the world as Lurie, an orphaned outlaw haunted by ghosts of his past and on the run and hiding within the U.S. Army Camel Corps, recounts his adventures. To a camel.

The second takes place over just one day as Nora, a strong homesteader and frontierswoman struggles with her husband leaving to find water the family desperately needs for survival, a guilty conscience, and speaks to her dead baby daughter, Evelyn. Her two eldest sons have left after a fight, her youngest son sees monsters, her flighty niece holds séances and communes with the dead, and a mother-in-law who is as unforgiving as the land round out the characters that make up Nora’s world.

Obreht is skillful at painting a picture and immersing the reader into the book with harsh Western landscapes, easy dialogue, and well-developed, memorable, flawed characters (even the ghosts) who meet the magnificent yet grim backdrop in their own way. Her lyrical prose is intricate and simply beautiful while she builds on a sense of mystery and ominous foreboding until the end.

Set in a time long past, there are relevant themes and symbolism to today’s world woven seamlessly throughout the book - war, immigrants, sexism, grief, tragedy, betrayal, psychological tolls – without hitting you over the head with them.

It is clear that Obreht has a gift for storytelling but every so often the descriptions became a bit too purple prosey and occasionally, I found myself skipping ahead mid-sentence. The book is a slow build with, at times, a dragging pace and plot. The disadvantage to her ability to sink you into the story so deeply is that with the dual storylines, she’d yank you out of one place and set you in another without warning and it was a bit jarring and disjointed.

Overall, Inland is a smart, fascinating, engaging, heartfelt tale with twists and turns and a touch of magic.

I never realized camels were part of the history of the southwest U.S. during the late 1800s! That's why I love historical fiction: to learn a bit while I read novels. The author is a master craftsman when it comes to word usage and sentence structure...almost lyrical at times. The novel is organized around two characters whose paths won't cross until late in the story but both are interesting and well-developed. A remarkable sense of place envelops the reader.

Thanks to Net Galley and Random House for the ARC to read and review.

First of all...thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book to read and review....but I had a difficult time with this book. I love most historical fiction but this wasn't what I was expecting.

Dreamlike, in that the writing is lyrical and hazy and gives you a picture, but not a lot of clarity on what is going on. Inland has two narrators in its old west setting: Lurie the Turkish Cameleer, and Nora the flinty homesteader without water and a missing husband in a severe drought in Arizona Territory. Both see/speak with spirits, but it takes most of the book for their stories to intersect. I still don't really understand what happened, but I don't think the plot is the point. Read for the parched landscapes instead. Sure to be popular as a book club selection due to its pedigree, but I would not suggest it myself.

This is not what I expected when I requested this book. I was expecting more of a historical fiction. Inland has two distinct stories. While that is not a problem, it was a challenge for me to keep interest as the stories were too disjointed. I struggled to stay engaged. While I have not read Obreht's first book, this book makes me not want to seek it.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

I read The Tiger’s Wife several years ago but it has always stuck out in my mind as one of the most magical books I have ever read. There is a mythical realism that runs throughout the story in a way that informs the reader about the past, but also about the characters and their future. Inland had that same mythical quality and managed to make the Southwest in a truly majestic landscape. Images of the past (ghosts) visit these characters and help them come to terms with who they are and where they are headed. I loved the elements of storytelling and myth that ran throughout this book, and the way the Arizona landscape came to life. Past and present collide in this book to create a beautiful tapestry of love, loss, and family. It was pretty remarkable and it will stay with me for a long time, just like The Tiger’s Wife.