Praise for Lost Nation:
"My real problem with Jeffrey Lent's Lost Nation is figuring out whether it is a masterpiece or simply an American classic. This is an age of obtuse hyperbole but I don't recall a recent novel more worthy of the traditional nine bows, a novel that more ruthlessly examines the nearly ancient roots of what we are today."
—Jim Harrison
"[Lost Nation] proves that [Lent's] first success was no fluke…. A dark and bloody tale about the power of guilt, the tragedy of misapprehension, and the will to survive, it offers a powerful yet compassionate exploration into the human condition."
—Library Journal (starred review)
"A memorable journey into [a] remarkable novel … The power of Lost Nation lies in the author's unique use of language, in both the written and the spoken patois of early-nineteenth-century New England. Lent's first novel, In the Fall, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2000. This is his second and should garner equal praise…. Grade: A-."
—William Dieter, Rocky Mountain News
"[This] intensely charged … mesmerizing tale … [shows a] remarkable command of atmosphere and gift for flinty, stark characterizations. Blood is a magnificently dramatic figure, Lear-like in his stoical resolve and the fury that consumes him."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Lent writes muscular prose and builds complex characters who move through his plot in ways that deftly demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses…. Lent writes wonderful dialogue and descriptions."
—Georgia Jones-Davis, The Washington Post
"A true American idyll is revealed, albeit an idyll fueled by hard work, disappointment, perseverance and raw pig-headedness…. The dialogue of Lost Nation—clipped, contracted, no fuss—is alone worth the price of this book…. A modern American classic."
—Chris Watson, Santa Cruz Sentinel
"Lent's subject is the American soul, Christian and savage at the same time, noble but also tragic, on the brink of civilization but prone to monstrousness."
—David Skinner, The Weekly Standard
"In Blood, we find a character deserving of both our pity and our cheers, something we recognize all too easily in ourselves … the story builds toward its explosive, and redemptive climax…. [Lost Nation] has given readers something they will both contemplate and enjoy. Good reading."
—Glen Young, Petoskey News-Review
"Lent writes with incredibly sensuous prose, bringing much of the backwood country to life…. Author of the acclaimed In the Fall, Lent captured with his Lost Nation the paramount sadness of man trying to run away from his past."
—Gregg Mayer, Jackson Clarion Ledger
"An engrossing and spirited tale of early American resilience."
—R.C. Scott, Washington DC Times
"Lent's game is to craft sweeping historical novels that lay bare the romance of America's early times. And nowhere is such a laying bare more bare than in his newest work, Lost Nation, a relentlessly dark, beautifully written book that's at once savage and graceful … [its] language, style and preciseness of prose would be difficult for most of today's best writers to match. This is a solid piece of work forged on an anvil of unrelenting scenes by grit and gift and hammered into the reader's psyche. Characters like Blood and Sally don't come along every day, and when they do, we're glad to have met them."
—Bill Brooks, Mountain Xpress
"An atmospheric story that's both disturbing and entertaining."
—Anne Stephenson, Arizona Republic
"Lent's Lost Nation shows that his talent has staying power. His carefully crafted but hardscrabble prose is like a rutted country road carving out its own literary territory…. A tale of sin, shame, death and redemption that's as compelling as Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and as true as Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides … Just as the deeply hidden truths of Blood's life contrast with the precision of his ledger-book entries, the author challenges our own paper record of the American frontier: What did it really require to be the last man—or woman—or culture, standing?"
—Martin Northway, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The New York Times best-selling author and writer of In the Fall has written a majestic account of individualism and nationhood…. [Lent] writes with authentic realism, and some scenes are not for the faint hearted…. Though vivid, the realism is tempered by images of warmth and pure poetry…. Lent has written a unique American mosaic. This is a provocative work of fiction that will endure."
—Marvin Minkler, The North Star Monthly
"Jeffrey Lent's formidable second novel is the kind of book that swallows its readers…. As he did with In the Fall, his impressive debut novel, Lent crafts this bleak tale with skill and audacity…. Part of Lent's authorial power comes from his master of juxtapositions in plot and in prose…. Lost Nation draws its real force from Lent's subtle rendering of interiors (physical and emotional), details, and perspectives."
—Kate Callen, The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Lent's follow-up to his acclaimed In the Fall is a strong book, and the author has tremendous literary gifts: a fine ear for speech, a keen eye for period detail, the ability to craft a well-turned phrase and create rich interior lives for his characters…. Rich language and obvious depth of thought."
—Keir Graff, Booklist
"Grand, dramatic … an epic story of individual redemption and the innocence lost as a civilization strives to define itself."
—Sarah Gianelli, The Oregonian
"With his new novel, Lost Nation, Jeffrey Lent has proven that there are second acts in American literature. Following on the success of his first novel, In the Fall, Lent has produced a second book with the same sort of tragic power and dignity…. He is a writer of such breathtaking talent and honesty that one feels compelled to group him with the greats of American literature. But, finally, he stands alone, as all true writers do…. A novel of brutal originality. The whole book has a sort of power and heartbreaking truth to it, a quality of something long forgotten and now remembered with brilliant clarity."
—Michael Pearson, Bookpage
"This is not a book for timid readers—visceral violence is commonplace and graphic. But there's a hard-won sweetness that peeks out occasionally in this thoroughly unsentimental account."
—Andrew Engelson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
"While the classic western naturally concentrates on the West, there were pockets in the East that were as wild as Dodge City, and Lent has found one in his second novel…. A rousing tale that will surely please the readers of his first, bestselling novel, In the Fall."
—Publishers Weekly
"Lost Nation is a unique novel about borders, about memory, about imagination, about the age-old dream of becoming a better man by moving to a different place. Jeffrey Lent's genius is that he recognizes that wherever we are now is wherever we have been, that we will always in some sense be both rooted and uprooted. Beautifully written, intricately paced, dark, fierce and often funny, Lost Nation is part love story, part parable, and part east-coast western. With his second novel Lent has already created his own undisputed territory in American literature."
—Colum McCann
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
In the Fall
for Elisabeth Schmitz
The Year of Our Lord Eighteen Hundred & Thirty-Eight