Heroes of the Frontier

In Eggers's (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) latest novel, lead character Josie faces a series of disasters in her personal life. She is trapped in a dead-end relationship with an aimless man, her dental practice closes owing to legal problems, and she feels out a place in small-town Ohio. So Josie, her wise-beyond-his-years son Paul, and wild-child daughter Anna rent a secondhand RV and set out on a cross-country journey, setting their sights on Alaska. During their adventure, they encounter a series of colorful characters and suffer various missteps while avoiding wildfires engulfing the wilderness and someone trying to serve legal papers on Josie. All along, Josie muses on what she sees as the sad state of both contemporary American society and her life. Eggers presents this account of a personal crisis in powerful, vivid prose that paints a stark picture of the Alaskan wilderness and a soul in torment. Rebecca Lowman excellently presents the story.