What do You think about Lost Nation (2002)?
This one was quite a surprise - and proof that sometimes the right book comes along at the wrong time. I had tried to read it once, and actually marked it as "not gonna happen." I picked it up again and absolutely loved it!The book is surprising - the two main characters, Blood- a 40+ year old man, running from his past, gritty, raw and flawed has purchased Sally, a 16 year old prostitute who actually is able to give him a run for his money. They settle in the wild west of the East - in a disputed area of New Hampshire, lawless and rough around the edges. As can be expected, two newcomers who set up a trading post/bar with a prostitute in the next room are not welcomed with open arms by the villagers. This is not Little House on the Prairie, there are no kind and caring characters, but more like Survival of the Fittest. As the plot unravels we learn what exactly Blood is running from and in doing so, his character is explained - not necessarily becoming likable, but indeed a bit more human. Sally's character, is also immensely complex as she accepts the fate she was born into, namely whoring, and makes the best of her life. She is illiterate and ignorant of the world. When she told Blood she had never tasted butter, I wanted to cry for her. When she told him that being dragged behind a cart, with feet so swollen that they didn't fit into her boots, with a shift so worn it was of little warmth - when she said that was so much nicer than whoring for her mother - I did cry. But - and this drove me crazy - my issue was so full of typos, grammatical errors and mistakes, that I took another look to see if it was an ARC - but it wasn't. Perhaps it is now cool to invent grammar, much in the way Cormac McCarthy does - but to me it just distracts because I have to go back and make sure I understood the context. In a book as lyrically written as this one, I found this extremely distracting.
—Noel
This book seemed to mutate as I read. At first, it was about a man, Blood, going into the wilderness with only his dog and a prostitute, Sally, that he won in a poker game. Then it's a story about the same man trying to make a life for himself as a tavern owner in the late 1800s in a territory sandwiched between New Hampshire and Canada and belonging to neither. Then it becomes about this same man running away from a horrible thing he has done in his life. Then, finally, it is about how the man reconciles with his grown children and faces his past. Each of these plot threads could be enough to sustain a whole novel on its own, but somehow in Lost Nation, the author has managed to bring these threads together. I think thematically, the thing that brings all of these disparate threads together is the question of how much agency one has in their own lives to determine how they live, both as to the place and style in which they choose to live as well as what kind of values they want to bring or how they want to interact with other people. The only portion of this book that I have some disagreement with is the Epilogue. I go back in forth in my mind as to whether I enjoyed the one last glimpse of one of the characters, to learn how it all turned out, or whether this ending took away from the ending, which left the situation on a much more questionable note. However, I also found myself thinking about this Epilogue after I had finished the book, wondering if it was a signal that my focus should have been on a different character the whole time. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about man's interaction with nature and anyone who enjoys historical fiction, as well as anyone who enjoys reading about characters struggling with large philosophical questions.
—Elizabeth Moeller
A few years ago, I read Jeffrey Lent's In the Fall, and I was mesmerized with the author's talent for prose paired with a gripping historical narrative. I knew I would have to read another by this gifted writer. Lost Nation did not disappoint.The novel takes place in Vermont, before statehood. Men ventured out into the wilderness of this New England area for solitude, and to establish communities as they would have them - far from the seats of competing nations that would control them. Those nations, The United States and Britain, weren't content to leave them alone. One such man, Blood, came to this area escaping his past. He brought him a young woman he won in a card game, and he established a tavern in the middle of the wilderness where he could set up trade. This was the lost nation that these settlers sought, but they soon found that paradise was a pipe dream.In Lost Nation, Lent examines man's need for isolation and community at the same time. His characters struggle with self-worth, self-reliance and human dignity. Lastly, his exploration of understanding and forgiveness in the characters of Blood and Sally, amidst the cruel backdrop of wilderness survival, is memorable, and has a uniquely American flavor.Jeffrey Lent is a master not only at storytelling, but in presenting the past in such a way that readers are easily transported into that world. His prose is amazing, and the novel was fluid and gripping. I recently read a Booker Prize Winner that I couldn't give the full five stars to because it of it's disconnectedness. Lost Nation is an example of a novel that fully deserves all five stars.
—Suzanne
