The Entire Sky: A Novel

by Joe Wilkins Narrated by Justin Price

Overview

With echoes of Demon Copperhead and Plainsong, a poignant story about a troubled boy on the run, an aging rancher, and a woman at a crossroads, who find unexpected solace and kinship in the family they make.

With his long hair and penchant for guitar, teenage Justin is the spitting image of his idol, Kurt Cobain-a resemblance that has often marked him an outcast. When the long-simmering abuse from his uncle finally boils over, Justin has no choice but to break free, in a violent act that will haunt him, and try to make it on his own as a runaway.

Meanwhile, in rural Montana, Rene Bouchard, a rancher nearing retirement, grieves the recent death of his wife. Her passing has revealed precisely how fractured the family has become-particularly the relationship between Rene and his daughter, Lianne. As old wounds ache anew, father and daughter begin to doubt the possibility of reconciliation, even as they each privately yearn for it.

Justin's wanderings bring him to the Bouchard family ranch, and soon Rene and Lianne take the boy in as their own. But before long, Justin's past threatens to catch up with him, jeopardizing not only his new bond with Rene and Lianne but also the home he's finally been able to claim. With its lyricism, tangible evocation of place, and piercing insight reminiscent of the novels of Barbara Kingsolver and Kent Haruf, The Entire Sky is an unforgettable piece of modern, American fiction.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

05/27/2024

In Wilkins’s lovely latest (after Fall Back Down When I Die), a teenage drifter offers a grieving rancher a new lease on life. The year is 1994 and Rene Bouchard, 71, is a recent widower in tiny Delphi, Mont. He’s in the midst of planning his suicide when he discovers that his long-serving ranchhand has been neglecting the sheep and decides to take over. A parallel narrative follows Justin, a waifish 16-year-old from Seattle who runs away from home to escape his abusive uncle. After Justin wanders onto Rene’s land, Rene puts him to work, haunted by how Justin triggers memories of his youngest son Franklin, who was bullied as a teen and who died by suicide. The cast also includes Rene’s married daughter, Lianne, who sticks around after her mother’s funeral to work as a substitute teacher. Despite Lianne’s misgivings about Justin, she accepts her father’s rapport with the teen, though the trio’s stability is threatened by a homophobic neighbor. In flashbacks, Wilkins gradually reveals the depth of the pain carried by each of the characters. It adds up to a bracing story of second chances. Agent: Sally Wofford-Girand, Union Literary. (July)

From the Publisher

“The book’s language is lyrical and poetic throughout, making even difficult passages somehow beautiful to read even as they raise goosebumps.”

—New York Journal of Books

"Wilkins offers a profound meditation on family and finding one’s identity. The prose is lyrical yet economical, like an elder who dispenses nuggets of wisdom with every utterance . . . Wilkins captures with devastating sensitivity how broken people can mend one another and how acceptance and forgiveness can lead to redemption and love."—Booklist (starred review)

“Gorgeous . . . Wilkins’ prose is lush and poetic, often expressing keen emotional insights through the characters’ reflections on the landscape.”—High Country News

“In desolate, scenic Montana, this novel of lost souls shows them finding themselves in each other . . . The Entire Sky is emotionally powerful and richly descriptive, rapturous in its evocation of the big skies and vast expanse and the lives that have come to seem so small and empty . . . The tale builds with inexorable tension, revealing what has happened, and what could. This is no country for sensitive boys. It’s a novel of flight or fight, of finding family and a home and a reason to live.”—Kirkus Reviews

"In Wilkins’s lovely latest, a teenage drifter offers a grieving rancher a new lease on life . . . In flashbacks, Wilkins gradually reveals the depth of the pain carried by each of the characters. It adds up to a bracing story of second chances."—Publishers Weekly

The Entire Sky fluctuates between springtime blue promise and the lightning-slash sting of rejection and despair, and finds another patch of blue by the book’s end.—Coast Weekend Magazine

"Joe Wilkins's The Entire Sky exposes with strength and poetry the unjust pain of toxic masculinity and the profound damage it wages on children. In these pages a different potential for manhood is turned over and examined, one that allows for gentleness, healing, acceptance, grace. Wilkins gives an exquisite depth to the Montana landscape and to his characters—this is a textured, bloody, and breathtaking book."—Sharma Shields, award-winning author of The Cassandra and The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac

“The Entire Sky is a beautifully written and deeply touching novel about a boy searching for safety and peace, a woman torn between the life she knows well and the new one she and her husband have created, and a man fighting to heal from loss and confronting the passage of time. Each of these characters will stick with me for a long time. I’ll read anything Joe Wilkins writes.”—De’Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

Praise for Fall Back Down When I Die:

"Wilkins delivers a Shakespearean mix of drama and mortal danger in crisp and beautiful language . . . He renders the effects of violence and trauma on the daily machinations of human lives . . . The world of the novel, rural Montana, is presented with the native realism of someone familiar with the people, language, landscape, and controversies of the 'way out here' . . . He captures the social dynamic of communities of few people spread over many swaths of land . . . This novel instills hope. Wilkins has produced a remarkable book filled with characters who, despite their inherent differences over how to exist on the land, remind us of the myriad reasons that every person might be loved."—The Oregonian

"A heart-rending tale of family, love and violence . . . Through these characters, in a prose that can hum gently, then spark like a fire, Wilkins fashions a Western fable which spirals down to a tragic end. Following in the literary roots of Montanans Jim Harrison and Rick Bass, Wilkins packs a lot of story and stylistic wallop into this gripping, outstanding novel."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Short story writer, poet, and memoirist Wilkins writes of hardscrabble life on the northern Great Plains with mesmerizing power, creating characters with rich if troubled interior lives who are desperate for agency and haunted by absent fathers. Wendell and Rowdy's slowly blossoming relationship is as lovely and breathtaking as the book's tragic ending is inevitable and devastating.
Suffused with a sense of longing, loss, and the desire for change -- asking deep questions about our place in the landscape and what, if anything, we are owed -- this is a remarkable and unforgettable first novel."—Booklist (starred review)

"Wilkins's novel feels insightful amid the ongoing debate over public land and legal rights, but it's also timeless, and it treads the same kind of territory as writers like Kent Haruf and Ivan Doig, digging into quiet stories of people living close to the land."—Outside Magazine

"Montana's rugged beauty is poetically evoked in Wilkins's fine debut. This is an accomplished first novel, notable in particular for its strong depiction of the timeless landscape of Montana's big sky country."—Publishers Weekly

Kirkus Reviews

2024-05-04
In desolate, scenic Montana, this novel of lost souls shows them finding themselves in each other.

The ghost of Kurt Cobain pervades Wilkins’ story. A broken Seattle family and a brutal uncle have sent 16-year-old Justin on the road to nowhere, looking to get away. A sensitive soul, he idolizes Cobain, looks a lot like him, even sounds like him when he plays his guitar. He feels like a misfit, and when he learns of the Nirvana frontman’s suicide, he’s devastated. The narrative alternates between Justin’s vagabond adventures and the lonely depression of Rene, a rural Montana rancher with strong principles and a body that’s breaking down. He’s recently lost his wife to cancer after losing a son to suicide. Daughter Lianne, who’d taken time off from teaching at a community college to nurse her mother, feels compelled to stay and look after her dad. She faces her own existential crisis after her husband and sons return home to Spokane. As the novel switches between sections of present (“April, 1994”) and past (“Before”), it seems that the stories of all three include secrets they would rather not share. It also seems structurally inevitable that Justin’s wanderings will lead him to Rene’s ranch. Though some of the thematic parallels seem belabored and peripheral characters veer toward caricature, the novel is emotionally powerful and richly descriptive, rapturous in its evocation of the big skies and vast expanse and the lives that have come to seem so small and empty. As Justin becomes Rene’s helper, the boy he’s found reminds the rancher of the son he lost. “These past days on the old man’s ranch had been enormous as the every-which-way blue of these prairie skies, almost blue and big enough for Justin to forget what he had been running from. Almost.” The tale builds with inexorable tension, revealing what has happened, and what could. This is no country for sensitive boys.

It’s a novel of flight or fight, of finding family and a home and a reason to live.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160336497
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	07/02/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,022,544

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