The Westward Hours - by Dennison Smith (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A dystopian epic of survival and memory in a climate-ravaged America

Long after climate change has wiped out millions and reshaped the world, the US has ended in civil war and rule by corporations. A privileged class of oligarchs and their private security units live under climate-controlled domes, while the dispossessed majority struggles to survive.

In the wastelands of Sacrifice - once the American Southwest - a charismatic brother and sister known in whispers as "The Twins" gather an army of the desperate and launch a brief, terrifying insurgency. Decades later, the Reunited States rises again - colder, harder, more religious and more exclusionary than ever.

But the blazing legacy of the Twins, half-history, half-legend, lingers in surprising ways...

Equal parts futuristic western and literary epic, Dennison Smith's novel confronts what is lost - and what may yet be born.

Review Quotes

'Compellingly brings together the oddity of American Gothic with a futuristic post mortem on capitalism'

Amit Chaudhuri, author of Friend of My Youth

'A scorchingly intense, ecologically resonant vision of our near-term future by a writer possessed of uncanny storytelling gifts'

David Abram, author of the Spell of the Sensuous

Praise for The Eye of the Day

'A remarkable coming-of-age story, told in a stunning voice that beguiles and enchants on every page'

Ruth Ozeki

'(Smith's writing is) equally beautiful and harsh'

Globe & Mail

'Exceptionally bold, beautiful, original and humane'

Joanna Kavenna

'A dramatic story told with intelligence and feeling'

Nancy Richler

'Dennison Smith's The Eye of the Day is an intimate, assured portrait of the complex, messy lives of a pair of unlikely friends'

Cathy Marie Buchanan

'A riveting narrative of survival, self-knowledge and the possibility of second chances'

Quill & Quire

About the Author

Dennison Smith is an award winning author whose previous novels include The Eye of the Day and Scavenger. In London, where she lived for a number of years before returning to the US, she founded The Baldwin Gallery, which represented contemporary fine art by indigenous North American artists. She has collaborated with institutions such as The National Maritime Museum, Canada House, and The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. Faced with the recent sea change in US politics, she now makes her home in Alentejo, Portugal.