Inland

A Novel

By: Téa Obreht

Narrated by: Anna Chlumsky, Edoardo Ballerini, Euan Morton

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “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!

Such a good book

I absolutely loved this book. The author wrote in such an authentic voice from the 1800s. The narrarors were so good . I totally dislike Nora, which speaks to how well the author wrote and how well the narrator conveyed her character. My favourite character, however, was the camel. Oh what a story. Thank you to everyone involved with its writing and production

really good

Her style is incredible, I loved the way she writes the landscape into the story, like cormac mccarthy. I didn't love the characters at first, but they grew on me, and felt real by the end. The mysticism does seem like a novelty at first, but it's used to deepen the story, and it works.

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.