Burn

March 1, 2024

Best-selling Heller (The Last Ranger) pens a dystopian tale. Friends Jess and Storey take their annual, off-grid trip to Maine. When they emerge from the woods, they find towns bombed and buildings burned down by secessionists. Trying to make their way home, they encounter a child, altering their paths and upping the stakes of their survival. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2024 Library Journal

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 17, 2024
A Maine camping trip turns into a fight for survival in this meditative dystopian thriller from Heller (The Last Ranger). Best friends Jess and Storey are headed home from their annual moose hunt when they find their route cut off by a bridge that appears to have been recently demolished. On foot, they arrive at a scorched village littered with corpses; with no phone signal, they speculate the violence is linked to the “secession mania” that’s been spreading through Maine. Further hiking takes them to a lakeside hamlet, where the friends exchange fire with hostile locals and steal a boat to pursue their attackers. They lose their quarry, but discover a five-year-old girl named Collie hiding in the boat—and now, in addition to finding their way home, Jess and Storey must locate Collie’s parents. Despite the high stakes, Heller gives the narrative plenty of space to breathe, allowing him to cast a haunting, immersive spell as his heroes traverse the ruined landscape. Painterly descriptions of nature and sparkling philosophical ruminations (“You are alone under the wheeling seasons, and the best memories are drained by loss”) elevate the proceedings. The result is a wilderness adventure with real emotional depth. Agent: David Halpern, David Halpern Literary.

July 1, 2024
Two men on a hunting trip encounter a civil war. Heller's novel follows Jess and Storey, two friends in Maine, as their annual hunting trip turns calamitous. Early on, Heller references a bridge being out and a way forward blocked. The exact nature of the catastrophe isn't revealed until partway through, though there are some hints. "All summer the entire state had been convulsed with secession mania," Heller writes. He describes the situation Jess and Storey are in as being "in the wake of a rolling catastrophe," with all the momentum that implies. The duo doesn't encounter another living person until a significant part of the book has passed--and once they do, their situation becomes even more unsettling, as it seems they're in a war zone with little sense of who's fighting, and on what side. (The way this escalates allows for a rare moment of gallows humor when Storey says, "The helicopters suggest to me it's not just a Maine thing.") The two men find a girl, Collie, who's become separated from her family, giving the second half a little more structure. Jess and Storey's journey across an uncertain landscape is interspersed with Jess' thoughts on his now-defunct marriage and his long friendship with Storey. Heller ably captures the white-knuckle momentum as the two men try to stay alive--bringing this book closer in tone to James Dickey's WWII-era thriller To the White Sea than to Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But that choice also makes the speculative elements feel disconnected from the story of the long friendship at this novel's heart; it's not hard to imagine much of the same action occurring in the wake of a natural disaster. An ambitious story of survival that doesn't always click, but is frequently thrilling.

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July 1, 2024
On their annual hunt in northern Maine this year, young men Jess and Storey are following a trail of cataclysmic events that has left entire towns decimated by fire or explosions--they aren't sure which or why. Their longing for escape ratchets up another level when they come upon a young castaway who also needs to find home. Amidst this uncertainty and these fearsome events, Jess finds an opportunity to reflect on past loss, grief, and missed opportunities and to face the choices he's made. Heller's (The Guide, 2021) somewhat dystopian narrative hints at our recent viral pandemic and civil divisiveness--which in the novel takes the form of unionists versus secessionists--as well as the horrifying violence our country is capable of. Heller takes time as well to highlight the unique importance and strong bond of male friendship. He excels at nature writing too, with lush, sensuous descriptions of beautiful rural landscapes that are illustrative of an author clearly at home in the outdoors.

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