Who Would Like This Book:
If you crave immersive historical fiction with a raw edge, "Lost Nation" is a stellar pick. The novel dives deep into rugged 1830s New England, with fierce, complex characters and a smoky, evocative atmosphere that practically lets you smell the earth and woodsmoke. Fans of Cormac McCarthy, Charles Frazier, or James Fenimore Cooper will be especially at home here. There's a lot to love for those who appreciate intense character studies, themes of redemption, and the constant, sometimes violent, struggle against nature and one’s own past.
Who May Not Like This Book:
This book is not for the faint of heart or those hoping for a light, uplifting read. Some find the atmosphere relentlessly grim, and the story can feel heavy, even bleak - think moral ambiguity, violence, and hard-scrabble living. The prose is occasionally dense and the pacing uneven, with some readers feeling the payoff comes too late or is underwhelming. Anyone uncomfortable with graphic scenes or who needs more hopeful storytelling may find it a tough trek.
About:
'Lost Nation' by Jeffrey Lent is a historical fiction novel set in the early 1800s in a territory between New Hampshire and Canada. The story revolves around a mysterious man named Blood, who wanders into the wilderness with a teenage girl named Sally, won in a poker game. As Blood tries to make a life for himself as a tavern owner, the novel delves into his past, his interactions with the community, and his struggle with guilt and redemption. The book is praised for its evocative writing style that vividly describes the harshness of the land and the complex characters involved.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers/content warnings for 'Lost Nation' include graphic violence, sexual exploitation, themes of guilt and trauma, death and grieving, and references to prostitution.
Has Romance?
There is a medium presence of romance in 'Lost Nation,' primarily focused on the reluctant relationship between Blood and Sally, which evolves within the context of their grim realities.
From The Publisher:
From the best-selling author Jeffrey Lent, Lost Nation is a tour de force novel. Impelled by sensuous prose and atmospheric storytelling, Lost Nation delves beneath the bright, promising veneer of early-nineteenth-century New England to unveil a startling parable of individualism and nationhood.
The novel opens with a man known as Blood, guiding an oxcart of rum toward the wild country of New Hampshire, an ungoverned territory called the Indian Stream-a land where the luckless or outlawed have made a fresh start. Blood is a man of contradictions, of learning and wisdom, but also a man with a secret past that has scorched his soul. He sets forth to establish himself as a trader, hauling with him Sally, a sixteen-year-old girl won from the madam of a brothel over a game of cards. Their arrival in the Indian Stream triggers an escalating series of clashes that serves to sever the master/servant bond between them, and offers both a second chance with life. But as the conflicts within the community spill over and attract the attention of outside authorities, Blood becomes a target to those seeking easy blame for their troubles. As plots unravel and violence escalates, two young men of uncertain identity appear, and Blood is forced to confront dreaded apparitions of his past, while Sally is offered a final escape.
Lost Nation is a vivid tale of unexpected strengths, terrible and sad misconceptions, and the yearning toward civil society in a landscape raw and with little pity for human strivings. In prose both lucid and seductive, it carries us deeply into human and natural conditions of extreme desolation and harrowing hardship, but also the relentless beat of hope and, finally, the redeeming capacity of love.
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Lost Nation?
About the Author:
Jeffrey Lent was born in Vermont and grew up there and in western New York State, on dairy farms powered mainly by draft horses. He studied Literature and Psychology at Franconia College in New Hampshire and SUNY Purchase. He lived for many years in North Carolina, an enriching and formative experience. Lent currently resides with his wife and two daughters in central Vermont.
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