The Distant Dead: A Novel

by Heather Young Narrated by Charlie Thurston, Jim Meskimen, Eva Kaminsky, Cassandra Campbell

Overview

Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Novel * Nominated for the ITW Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel

A BookPage Best Book of the Year * A People Magazine Best Book of Summer * A Parade Best Book of Summer * A Crime Reads Most Anticipated Book of Summer

""Powerful...a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them."" - San Francisco Chronicle

A body burns in the high desert hills. A boy walks into a fire station, pale with the shock of discovery. A middle school teacher worries when her colleague is late for work. By day's end, when the body is identified as local math teacher Adam Merkel, a small Nevada town will be rocked to its core.

Adam Merkel left a university professorship in Reno to teach middle school in Lovelock seven months before he died. A quiet, seemingly unremarkable man, he connected with just one of his students: Sal Prentiss, a lonely sixth grader who lives with his uncles on a desolate ranch in the hills. The two outcasts developed a tender, trusting friendship that brought each of them hope in the wake of tragedy. But it is Sal who finds Adam's body, charred almost beyond recognition, half a mile from his uncles' compound.

Nora Wheaton, the middle school's social studies teacher, dreamed of a life far from Lovelock only to be dragged back on the eve of her college graduation to care for her disabled father, a man she loves but can't forgive. She sensed in the new math teacher a kindred spirit--another soul bound to Lovelock by guilt and duty. After Adam's death, she delves into his past for clues to who killed him and finds a dark history she understands all too well. But the truth about his murder may lie closer to home. For Sal Prentiss's grief seems heavily shaded with fear, and Nora suspects he knows more than he's telling about how his favorite teacher died. As she tries to earn the wary boy's trust, she finds he holds not only the key to Adam's murder, but an unexpected chance at the life she thought she'd lost.

Weaving together the last months of Adam's life, Nora's search for answers, and a young boy's anguished moral reckoning, this unforgettable thriller brings a small American town to vivid life, filled with complex, flawed characters wrestling with the weight of the past, the promise of the future, and the bitter freedom that forgiveness can bring.

Editorial Reviews

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

This book may not be packed with high-octane thrills, but it's honestly engaging, with its appreciation for the stark beauty of a high desert landscape and its gentle treatment of underage outcasts like Absalom (Sal) Prentiss, whose discovery of chess brings joy into his life.

Publishers Weekly

03/16/2020

The discovery of a charred corpse outside Lovelock, Nev., drives this moving psychological thriller from Young (The Lost Girls). Middle school social studies teacher Nora Wheaton has deferred her dream of exploring the world as an anthropologist to care for her father, who’s partially disabled after drunkenly crashing his truck and killing her older brother 13 years earlier. Precocious recently orphaned sixth grader Sal Prentiss, who finds the body, has only a pair of menacing and possibly criminal uncles standing between him and foster care. Flashbacks reveal that the victim, former university professor Adam Merkel, was reduced to teaching math at the middle school—where he befriended fellow outcast Sal—for unknown reasons. Through the course of the murder investigation, in which Nora, Sal’s teacher, assists, Young gradually reveals her characters’ complicated pasts while skillfully building suspense. Never mind a tad too much symmetry in some of the backstories. This emotionally resonant saga, firmly rooted in the high desert hills, will keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Michelle Brower, Aevitas Creative Management. (June)

From the Publisher

"Powerful and poignant." — People

"Powerful...a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them." — San Francisco Chronicle

"With her usual blend of inventive storytelling and gorgeous prose, Heather Young delivers big themes and a poignant coming-of-age story in this complex, page-turning mystery/thriller. Resonant and relevant, The Distant Dead kept me reading late at night, and the characters followed me around during the day, especially a precocious and unusual sixth-grade boy named Absalom who is hard to forget. As a fan of Young’s debut, The Lost Girls, I found myself swept into another beautifully-crafted story that’s even more suspenseful, at times more terrifying, and ultimately just as surprising. The Distant Dead is not to be missed." — James McLaughlin, author of Bearskin

"A story that begins with a horrific discovery and expands to explore the weight of familial obligation, the far-reaching devastation of drug addiction and the ways in which guilt and boredom can curdle into something much more sinister...[Young's] language is poetic, and her contemplation of the corrosiveness of suppressed emotion is both sympathetic and impatient: When will people learn?" — BookPage (starred review)

"Bright, flawless writing, wonderful characters, and a sense of pacing that ratchets up the tension—what more could you want from a thriller? I loved this book. I bet you will too." — Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Butterfly Girl

“Stunning … An ideal recommendation for fans of Kate Atkinson.” — Booklist (starred review)

"[THE DISTANT DEAD] is at heart about the timelessness of human curiosity, the eternal possibility of forgiveness, and the everyday miracle of survival. Electrifying, ambitious, and crushingly beautiful." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Engrossing...an enjoyable character-driven murder mystery that is emotionally poignant and empathetic." — Mystery Scene

  "This emotionally resonant saga, firmly rooted in the high desert hills, will keep readers turning the pages." — Publishers Weekly

Rene Denfeld

"Bright, flawless writing, wonderful characters, and a sense of pacing that ratchets up the tension—what more could you want from a thriller? I loved this book. I bet you will too."

Mystery Scene

"Engrossing...an enjoyable character-driven murder mystery that is emotionally poignant and empathetic."

People

"Powerful and poignant."

San Francisco Chronicle

"Powerful...a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them."

BookPage (starred review)

"A story that begins with a horrific discovery and expands to explore the weight of familial obligation, the far-reaching devastation of drug addiction and the ways in which guilt and boredom can curdle into something much more sinister...[Young's] language is poetic, and her contemplation of the corrosiveness of suppressed emotion is both sympathetic and impatient: When will people learn?"

James McLaughlin

"With her usual blend of inventive storytelling and gorgeous prose, Heather Young delivers big themes and a poignant coming-of-age story in this complex, page-turning mystery/thriller. Resonant and relevant, The Distant Dead kept me reading late at night, and the characters followed me around during the day, especially a precocious and unusual sixth-grade boy named Absalom who is hard to forget. As a fan of Young’s debut, The Lost Girls, I found myself swept into another beautifully-crafted story that’s even more suspenseful, at times more terrifying, and ultimately just as surprising. The Distant Dead is not to be missed."

Booklist (starred review)

Stunning … An ideal recommendation for fans of Kate Atkinson.

San Francisco Chronicle

"Powerful...a breathtaking read, with flawed and authentic characters who hit so close to home that at times it is impossible not to root for them."

Kirkus Reviews

★ 2020-03-29
Lonely, broken people in a dead-end town are forced to confront the fragility of life and relationships in the aftermath of a horrific death.

A young boy, Sal Prentiss, discovers a burned corpse in the lonely hills of a small Nevada town, soon revealed to be that of Adam Merkel, the middle school math teacher, a new arrival who came—and died—carrying a lot of secrets. Though few mourn his passing, nearly everyone in town seems to be struggling with their own frustrations and losses, from Nora Wheaton, the history teacher who tends her ailing father, unable to confront him about his role in her brother’s death years ago, to Sal, who lost his mother to a drug overdose the year before. As each one makes choices that will direct the courses of their own lives and those of so many others, they also work to find out more about Adam’s death and what events had brought him to their town: the intersections of the lives that led to his death. Playing out against the barren landscape of a struggling town, all this drama is worthy of a Greek tragedy, and there is also something tragic in the scope and depth of the characters' hubris and personal struggles. Young clearly has a gift for crafting complex, flawed protagonists and creating both empathy and understanding for them, but it takes a true master to also build empathy for minor characters, who would be so easy to leave in two dimensions. When a middle school bully, in teasing a teacher, becomes the target of that teacher’s anger, the way Young reveals the root of the boy's cruelty, and vulnerability, suddenly reverses everything we thought we knew. And this small example, magnified, represents the brilliance of the novel: It is at heart about the timelessness of human curiosity, the eternal possibility of forgiveness, and the everyday miracle of survival.

Electrifying, ambitious, and crushingly beautiful.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172657092
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/09/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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