A major new essay collection from the National Book Award-winning author of Arctic Dreams.
UNTITLED ESSAY COLLECTION
by Barry Lopez
Random House, Fall 2021
These new and collected essays from the acclaimed naturalist Barry Lopez—his final undertaking—represent the culmination of a lifetime’s thought in service of our relationship with wilderness, and with each other. Here, his collected essays offer a unifying vision; his drive to reconnect the cultural and the natural is unflinching, and major, never-published pieces offer profound commentary on topics that veer from the autobiographical—his abuse as a child—to the evolution of his views on the untamed. His classic prose, like the arctic landscape he elegized, remains as ever: “spare, balanced, extended…” It has been said that Barry Lopez understood what we gain when we accept the enormity of what we don’t know; these essays hinge on that tantalizing concept.
Barry Lopez (1945-2020) was the author of thirteen books of essays, short stories, and nonfiction. He was a recipient of the National Book Award, the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and numerous other literary and cultural honors and awards. His highly acclaimed books include Horizon, Arctic Dreams, Winter Count, and Of Wolves and Men, for which he received the John Burroughs and Christopher medals.
Hailed as “brilliant” (New York Times Book Review) and “wildly talented” (Chicago Tribune), New York Times bestselling writer Lily King has received widespread acclaim for her fiction. Her novel Euphoria (over 500,000 copies sold worldwide) was a breakout success, while, more recently, her novel Writers & Lovers was an instant New York Times bestseller, earned rapturous reviews, and was selected for numerous best of the year lists. Now the inimitable Lily King returns with her first-ever collection, including several never-beforepublished stories. Spanning over two decades of her life as a writer, King’s thoughtfully curated work elegantly explores her trademark themes of love, family, career, and loss.
The year is 1994, and South Africa is in political turmoil as its first democratic election looms. Against a backdrop of apartheid and racial violence, traumatized artist Yolanda Petersen returns from the Appalachian foothills to the land of her youth at the behest of her mother. While there Yolanda longs to reconnect with her estranged daughter, Ingrid, the product of an illegal mixed-race affair with a white man. But Ingrid is missing, and as Yolanda quickly discovers, she isn’t the only woman in Cape Town desperate to protect her own. Ingrid’s very existence is proof of a white man’s crime, and that man’s mother will do anything—even kill—to ensure the truth remains buried.
On the cusp of her eighteenth birthday, Heera and her best friends, siblings Marie and Marco, are rebelliously teasing what fun can be had out of life in Raleigh, North Carolina. But no matter how much Heera defies her strict upbringing, from pickpocketing to vandalism, she’s always avoided any real danger—until Marie is killed in an accident in front of her and Marco. Then everything changes. Marco begins calling himself Crash and over the years to come, spends his days womanizing and burning through a string of jobs. Heera’s dream of college in New York is upended by a family illness. She soon finds herself trapped in a loveless arranged marriage to a wealthy man and in-laws who become fearful of the devastating force of community gossip.