Inland

A Novel

By: Téa Obreht

Narrated by: Anna Chlumsky, Edoardo Ballerini, Euan Morton

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • “A bracingly epic and imaginatively mythic journey across the American West” (Entertainment Weekly), from the celebrated author of The Tiger’s Wife and The Morningside

“Obreht’s simple but rich prose captures and luxuriates in the West’s beauty and sudden menace.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Esquire, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, Town & Country, The New York Public Library, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, BookPage

In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life—her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West.

Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht’s talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely—and unforgettably—her own.

Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction

Great writing

4 1/2 stars. The reading starts with a narrator whose cadences and accent are perfect for the subject matter and excellent prose. Unfortunately, when the female voice starts, it’s as if a high-pitched clanging started; without inflection, the words are simply clipped off the page without storytelling or southern accent ability. Nevertheless, Obreht is an excellent writer, and her sweeping tale captures the atmosphere of her chosen era/location. It doesn’t have a sharp story arc, or a lot of plot; this is more for those who enjoy meandering through well-evoked times/places/circumstances they’ve not experienced in their own lives.

Hypnotic and beautiful

Tea captures the bleak and haunting lives of her characters, and the desolate majesty of their landscapes in a style reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy. Beneath the seemingly stagnant surface of their hard lives there runs a turbulent current of changing times and tragedy. This book was absolutely mesmerizing!

If you like westerns . . . and camels

A ghost story featuring a camel in the pioneer west. A love story with the weird wind of the prairie driving the lonely woman a little mad out there alone with her kids. A range war story between two homespun newspapers. A murder mystery - without a murder.

This is a highly imaginative, weird-ass book. It starts out slowly and takes a while to sink in, but turned out to be worth the languid ramp-up.

A hard listen. Better to read this one.

I finished Inland a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't sure how I felt about it then, but the story has stayed with me, and confounded me somewhat. I will leave it to folks smarter than I to figure out what I missed.
The main problem with listening to Inland is the narration by the actor narrating Lurie. The voice is soft and dreamy, appropriate for a character speaking of memories, but difficult to hear while riding in a car even with the sound at full volume. The words on the page would have had more impact, as Lurie's life was full of sadness and desperation.
The story takes place with Nora, as she explains her life through her thoughts, on how she came to be in Arizona, needing water desperately, on this particular day in 1893. Lurie's life is also told in retrospect, ending on that very same day in Arizona when the two stories finally come together.
The characters are richly drawn. The story is beautifully written. The camel is fun. Wish I had read it instead.
Our book club read this as our month selection.

A Satisfying Atmosphere...of Want (Thirst)!

This fine literary novel led me by the snout throughTéa Obrecht's imaginary desert landscapes into spriit of human migration and survival. Beautiful and constantly engaged with wispy promises of tales advancing toward thirst-quenching resolution....by the end, when it comes together, you are wise enough not to mistake survival for fortune's smile.

Obrecht plys some delightful tricks. The language, the dialogue, has a frankly "pretend" old-fashioned quality, as the characters speak with astounding precision and erudition . It gave me joy! Obrecht teases with matter-of-fact facts just laying around to be explained somewhere ahead.

Narration served the text well, especially Edoardo Ballerini's gravel-voiced confessions. Euan Morton's brief segment was well-read but broke the 4th wall, by inserting the thought that Anna Chlumsky had flubbed that section and it had to be rescued.