Dominion: A Novel

A gripping adventure and tale of high-stakes friendship set against the stunning landscape of pre-pipeline Alaska, from the cocreator and cowriter of the Netflix series Outer Banks

“With perfect pitch, Burke delivers a tumultuous, life-changing friendship. . . . Gritty twentieth-century capitalism collides with the last vast wilderness [in this] beautiful, profound, compelling novel.” —James McLaughlin, author of Bearskin

Set in the early 1970s, just before the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, this novel immerses us in a world where hunters, politicians, Indigenous people, oilmen, and wild animals clash for survival. The friendship between the bush pilot narrator, Gunter, and his client Hammer, a loudmouthed, boisterous industrialist, is the engine that drives the story’s risky, page-turning exploits. The two save each other’s lives on river rapids, make their way off the Bering Sea ice in midwinter, and track a majestic Dall sheep through perilous high terrain, a pursuit that comes at a tragic cost.

In spare and elegant prose, unfolding across breathtaking vistas on the tundra, the alpine mountains, and the ice pack, Burke deftly renders the challenges facing this still unspoiled region. The expeditions bind the two men and drive them apart—testing their loyalty to each other and the Alaska they love.

Dominion examines not only the limits and bonds of friendship but the powerful gifts of the land itself.