Homestead

From NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION 5 UNDER 35 HONOREE and FLANNERY O'CONNOR AWARD WINNER Melinda Moustakis, a debut novel set in Alaska, about the turbulent marriage of two unlikely homesteaders

"A beautiful novel, quiet as a snowfall, warm as a glowing wood stove...Admirers of Marilynne Robinson and Alice Munro are bound to appreciate." --NPR

"Spare and exquisite, tough and lovely. The sentences build on themselves, becoming expansive and staggering in their sweep." --The New York Times Book Review

Anchorage, 1956. When Marie and Lawrence first lock eyes at the Moose Lodge, they are immediately drawn together. But when they decide to marry, days later, they are more in love with the prospect of homesteading than anything else. For Lawrence, his parcel of 150 acres is an opportunity to finally belong in a world that has never delivered on its promise. For Marie, the land is an escape from the empty future she sees spinning out before her, and a risky bet is better than none at all. But over the next few years, as they work the land in an attempt to secure a deed to their homestead, they must face everything they don't know about each other. As the Territory of Alaska moves toward statehood and inexorable change, can Marie and Lawrence create something new, or will they break apart trying?

Immersive and wild-hearted, joyfully alive to both the intimate and the elemental, Homestead is an unflinching portrait of a new state and of the hard-fought, hard-bitten work of making a family.

Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 02/28/2023
Pages: 272
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.50h x 6.41w x 1.03d
ISBN: 9781250845559


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2022 pg. 7
Booklist 11/01/2022 pg. 44
Publishers Weekly 12/05/2022
Kirkus Reviews 02/01/2023

About the Author
Melinda Moustakis was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and grew up in California. Her story collection, Bear Down, Bear North: Alaska Stories, won the Flannery O'Connor Award, the Maurice Prize, and was a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 selection. Her work has appeared in American Short Fiction, Alaska Quarterly Review, Granta, Kenyon Review, and elsewhere, and has been awarded an O. Henry Prize. She is the recipient of the Hodder Fellowship from Princeton University, the NEA Literature Fellowship, the Kenyon Review Fellowship, and the Rona Jaffe Cullman Fellowship at the New York Public Library. Homestead is her debut novel.