So Far Gone: A Novel

National Bestseller

"A warm, funny, loving novel. . . . It's an American original."—Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Tom Lake

"Searing and sublime … Walter is a slyly adept social critic, and has clearly invested his protagonist with all of the outrage and heartbreak he himself feels about the dark course our world has taken ... What gets us all through … are novels like this one.” Leigh Haber, Los Angeles Times.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins—and in the propulsive spirit of Charles Portis’ True Grit—comes a hilarious, empathetic, and brilliantly provocative adventure through life in modern America, about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.

Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.

Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?

With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind. So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation, from a writer who has been called “a genius of the modern American moment” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

A Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Boston.com "Best Book of the Year" * A New York Times "New Book We Recommend" * A NY Post "Best New Book" * An Oprah's Book Club, Good Morning America, LA Times, New York Times, CBS Sunday, Elle, Esquire, Lit Hub, Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, and Minnesota Star Tribune "Must Read Book for Summer" * An Alta Magazine "Book of the Month" * A Lit Hub "Best Reviewed Book" * Starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, and Library Journal * A Publishers Weekly and Washington Post "Most Anticipated" * An NPR "Book We Love" * A Chicago Public Library "Favorite Book of the Year"

"A wistful elegy — some might say a eulogy — to a kinder, gentler time … Among the many melancholy pleasures of this novel is that Walter synthesizes that desire many of us feel — and mostly resist — to crawl under the covers… Walter is a slyly adept social critic, and has clearly invested his protagonist with all of the outrage and heartbreak he himself feels about the dark course our world has taken....If there’s hope to be found within this harsh landscape, it’s in our connection with one another.... Or for that matter, novels like this one." - Los Angeles Times

"In this brilliant and riotous jaunt through modern America,.... Walter’s “So Far Gone” is a standout read this summer." - Huffington Post

"As one would expect from a writer of Walter’s empathy and intelligence, So Far Gone transcends the madcap misadventures of the Kinnick clan.... Walter makes an affecting, persuasive case that our deepest happiness is the sort we find closest to home." - BookPage (starred review)