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"Jeffrey Lent's first novel, In the Fall, earned him comparisons to Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner. With Lost Nation, we'll have to go back a little further, say, to Euripides...(a) remarkable tragedy." -- The Christian Science Monitor
“A memorable journey into [a] remarkable novel . . . The power of Lost Nation lies in the author’s unique use of language, in both the written and the spoken patois of early-nineteenth-century New England. Lent’s first novel, In the Fall, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2000. This is his second and should garner equal praise. . . . Grade: A-.” —William Dieter, Rocky Mountain News “[This] intensely charged . . . mesmerizing tale . . . [shows a] remarkable command of atmosphere and gift for flinty, stark characterizations. Blood is a magnificently dramatic figure, Lear-like in his stoical resolve and the fury that consumes him.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Lent’s Lost Nation shows that his talent has staying power. His carefully crafted but hardscrabble prose is like a rutted country road carving out its own literary territory. . . . A tale of sin, shame, death and redemption that’s as compelling as Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and as true as Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides . . . Just as the deeply hidden truths of Blood’s life contrast with the precision of his ledgerbook entries, the author challenges our own paper record of the American frontier: What did it really require to be the last man—or woman--or culture, standing?” —Martin Northway, St. Louis Post-Dispatch “With his new novel, Lost Nation, Jeffrey Lent has proven that there are second acts in American literature. Following on the success of his first novel, In the Fall, Lent has produced a second book with the same sort of tragic power and dignity. . . . He is a writer of such breathtaking talent and honesty that one feels compelled to group him with the greats of American literature. But, finally, he stands alone, as all true writers do. . . . A novel of brutal originality. The whole book has a sort of power and heartbreaking truth to it, a quality of something long forgotten and now remembered with brilliant clarity.” —Michael Pearson, Bookpage |
Photo Credit: Myra Hudson
