Each day leading up to the April 16 announcement of the Minnesota Book Awards, and in collaboration with community editors from the award-winning Saint Paul Almanac, we highlight one of the thirty-two finalists. Today we feature 2016 Novel & Short Story finalist:
The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy
Published by Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group
Category Sponsor: Education Minnesota
In this post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga, a super flu and nuclear fallout have made a husk of the world we know. A few humans carry on, living in outposts such as the Sanctuary—the remains of St. Louis—when a rider comes from the wasteland beyond its walls reporting that civilization thrives west of the Cascades. Against the wishes of the Sanctuary, a small group sets out in secrecy. Led by Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark, they hope to expand their infant nation, and to reunite the States. But the Sanctuary will not allow them to escape without a fight.
Author Bio:
Benjamin Percy is the author of the novels Red Moon and The Wilding, and two short story collections, Refresh, Refresh and The Language of Elk. His writing has appeared in Esquire, GQ, Time, Tin House and elsewhere. His honors include the Pushcart Prize, an NEA grant, the Plimpton Prize for Fiction, and a Whiting Award. Raised in the high desert of central Oregon, he lives in Minnesota.
Benjamin Percy is on Facebook and on Twitter
An Excerpt from The Dead Lands:
Sometimes she dreams the child is not a child. It is a grub, fat and white and segmented, with black eyes. It is a beast with tiny yellow fangs and tiny yellow claws, its body covered in fur as sleek as an otter’s. Or maybe it is a nothing, a dark spirit, a possessed vapor, and her body the house it haunts.
So she is relieved when she gives the final push and feels a tear, a gush, an emptying — and then the midwife smiles and coos and says, “There now.” She cuts the cord with a knife. She carries the child to the table and wipes it clean with a rag.
Juliana bunches towels between her legs and watches the child through heavy-lidded eyes. Everything is fine. Everything will turn out all right after all. She is, as her mother always said, a worrier.
Then she notices something. The absence of something. The baby is not crying. The baby has not made a sound. The midwife stands over it, the red rag in her hand like a crushed rose.
“What’s the matter? Is it alive? It’s alive, isn’t it?”
The midwife nods.
”Is it all right?” The midwife looks at her, looks at the baby, with a mouth that quivers with words she cannot express.
“What is it? A boy?”
“A girl.”
”What’s wrong?”
Her voice comes out a choked whisper when she says, “Her eyes.” She drapes a blanket around the child and hurries to the bed in a rush to be rid of it.
Reviews and Conversations:
“The voyage of Lewis and Clark is America’s Lord of the Rings — our great and foundational quest narrative. And even with all the giant spiders and ghostly ex-presidents, the bones of that tale are in good hands here. Percy has some literary ambition. He wants very badly to make this a fable about environmental stewardship, the punishing lash of class division and the dangers of American exceptionalism. But his story of broken weirdos wandering a dead America in search of a better life is a great read no matter how you approach it.” — Jason Sheehan, NPR Book Review
“Benjamin Percy’s The Dead Lands is a case of wonderful writing and compulsive reading. You will not come across a finer work of sustained imagination this year. Good God, what a tale. Don’t miss it.” ― Stephen King
“[A] visionary thriller …With its fluid integration of reflections on American values and freedoms into a near-future scenario whose dramas resonate with the contemporary zeitgeist, this novel is a reminder that the best speculative fiction speaks to the concerns and issues of its time.” ―Publisher’s Weekly, starred review
“Benjamin Percy is one of the most gifted and versatile writers to appear in American publishing in years… His prose has the masculine power of Ernest Hemingway’s, but also the sensibilities and compassion of Eudora Welty. His writing is like a meeting of Shakespeare and rock ‘n’ roll.” — James Lee Burke, bestselling author of House of the Rising Sun, Wayfaring Stranger, Heaven’s Prisoners, and Neon Rain.
“When the apocalypse happens, totalitarianism in one form or another is likely, good people will do bad things and nature will abandon us, making food and water as scarce as our decency. In The Dead Lands, Minnesota author Benjamin Percy takes these motifs and does magnificent things with them.”— Carole E. Barrowman, Special to the Star Tribune
“Fresh, compelling, epic. A post-apocalyptic novel of very high quality. With a mix of history and fiction, hope for recovery and redemption in a dystopian world of tyrants and monsters, human nature is on full display. The narrative is strong and smart, and reads fast. Percy lets the reader into every character deeply, and yet not to distraction from the larger arc of the plot. The role of guns, disease, the seeking of and inevitable misuse of power, are compelling and yet the book entertains.” — Minnesota Book Awards Preliminary Round Judge
Listen:
Adding Horror to Literary Fiction: Benjamin Percy Defies Genre Lines “Percy doesn’t have much use for genre lines: horror, thriller, mystery, literary fiction. He takes his cue from Margaret Atwood, Dennis Lehane and others whose work transcends these labels. ‘It doesn’t really matter, these are all phantom barricades,’ he said of such categories.”
The National Writers Series: An Evening with Benjamin Percy (1:27:44) (after publication of his previous book, Red Moon)
The evening features a Preface Reception with complimentary passed wine and cash bar, author meet-and-greet, book sales and signing; the Awards Ceremony with live music, celebrity presenters, artisan cheese plates and breads, complimentary wine and lemonade, with emcee Stephanie Curtis of MPR; and the Epilogue After-Party with complimentary champagne, sumptuous desserts, and additional live music. Tickets now on sale, or click here for more information.
Today’s winner: Janet Farmer. (We’ll be in touch via email, and arrange getting the book to you!)
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