Sunrise - by Téa Obreht (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Three lives, one hundred years, one ghost town: an explosive novel about a mysterious place called Sunrise, where the secrets of the past refuse to stay buried, from the award-winning author of The Tiger's Wife

"Masterful . . . [Obreht] delightfully mashes up several genres, including Western gothic, murder mystery and survival saga."--The New York Times Book Review

"I've loved every book Téa Obreht has written but I might love this one the most. Please put this book into the hands of everyone you know."--Liz Moore, author of The God of the Woods

In 2024, Nina's small-engine plane crashes into a lake in the Wyoming mountains. Her boyfriend Ben, who was flying it, is nowhere to be found. Lost and freezing on the shore, Nina is armed with only a few old protein bars, a phone with no service, and a vague hope of rescue. It is up to her to survive in the vast wilderness. But then she stumbles upon Sunrise--a town of the Old West that is strangely well maintained, but seemingly abandoned. A place that holds the missing link to a ghost story one hundred years in the making.

In 2003, local golden boy Coll is putting the finishing touches on the town's annual historical reenactment. But when an upstart would-be author comes to him with questions about one of Sunrise's most beloved figures, it threatens to upend everything he thought he knew about the city--and himself.

In 1902, town founder, gunslinger, and legendary pulp hero Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise and quickly takes charge of a group searching for a missing boy. But who really is Vargas? What does he know about the boy's disappearance? And why has he returned after such a long absence?

These three strangers are separated by time and circumstance. But Sunrise's many secrets are like gunpowder: quiet, contained, until they encounter a spark. Magisterial and suspenseful, Téa Obreht's novel challenges the myths we think we know: of heroes and villains, of the people and places to which we lay claim, and, most of all, of our own lives.

Review Quotes

"Téa Obreht never disappoints."--Esquire

"A Cessna plane crashes into a Wyoming lake and a young woman staggers out, uninjured. As she searches for her missing boyfriend she stumbles into an abandoned, pristine mining town where a pair of conjoined mysteries await, unraveling her sense of time and place."--The Boston Globe

"Téa Obreht connects her three characters across disparate realities, a speculative marvel and a parable of a nation in the throes of change."--Time

"[An] engrossing, original and thought-provoking novel, effortlessly readable and beautifully told."--The Guardian

"Kaleidoscopic . . . As the narratives converge, Obreht teases out the relationship between our conceptions of history and of ourselves."--The New Yorker

"Obreht explores the forgotten truth behind the larger-than-life stories and characters that populate the West, focusing on how these narratives reverberate back to the modern day in the most unexpected ways imaginable."--BOMB

"This triple-timeline story that asks: Who writes history, and what do they have to hide?"--Good Housekeeping

"Obreht's latest novel is an unputdownable, metafictional, and nimble page-turner."--Literary Hub

"I've loved every book Téa Obreht has written but I might love this one the most. It's tense and beautifully constructed, and it features Obreht's signature precision when it comes to both language and emotion. Please put this book into the hands of everyone you know."--Liz Moore, New York Times bestselling author of The God of the Woods

"Sunrise is thrilling and ingenious. In her new novel, Obreht explores this country's troubled past, its gaps and silences, and the rich history that only new storytellers can excavate."--Laila Lalami, bestselling author of The Dream Hotel

"Spellbinding and ingeniously crafted, this novel deepens Obreht's reputation as one of our moment's most original bards and shows the power of story to orient, investigate, and illuminate."--Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and Something New Under the Sun

"Obreht employs impressive restraint, providing just enough clues to create intrigue as the reader pieces together the connections between the three storylines . . . it careens to an explosive climax."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"An adventurous, rewarding novel from a writer who just gets better and better."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Obreht is riveting in each time frame as she exults in emulating and subverting tales of the Old West while exposing the poisonous complexities of gender, taboo love, myth, history, and our desecration of the wild in a breathtaking, shocking, and reverberating survival story."--Booklist, starred review

"A Wyoming ghost town provides the stage for this spectacular novel from Obreht about the enduring myths of the Wild West."--The Millions

"[Obreht] masters the challenge of bringing dif­ferent times and places to life . . . one of the most unusual, thought-provoking books you'll read this year."--BookPage

About the Author

Téa Obreht is the internationally bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife, Inland and The Morningside. Her novels have won the Orange Prize for Fiction, been a finalist for the National Book Award, won the Southwest Book Award, and won for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among many other publications. Originally from the former Yugoslavia, Obreht now resides in Wyoming.