Heroes of the Frontier

2018 Longlist

A hilarious and heart-warming misadventure through modern America: it’s time for the family vacation…

Josie’s life is falling apart – lawsuits raining down, her business down the drain and a feckless husband long gone – so she gathers up her two kids and lights out for the wilderness. The Alaskan wilderness, to be specific.

This is a story about the trip of a lifetime. It involves one battered old RV, one highly sensitive eight year old boy, one fearless and hyperactive five year old girl, several forest fires, a large supply of pinot noir, and a deeply misguided sense of optimism. It may well be that things don’t turn out quite as Josie expected – but then again, some of the best places in the world are found at the end of a road you didn’t mean to take…

Heroes of the Frontier is an uproariously funny portrait of modern America and the modern family, an entirely contemporary novel gleaming with Dave Eggers’ trademark intelligence and originality.

About the author

Dave Eggers is the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity, The Unforbidden is Compulsory, How We Are Hungry, Short Short Stories, Teachers Have It Easy, Surviving Justice, What is the What, How the Water Feels to the Fishes, The Wild Things, Zeitoun, A Hologram for the King, The Circle and Your Fathers, Where Are They? And The Prophets, Do They Live Forever?. A Hologram for the King and The Circle are both major film adaptations.

Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney’s independent publishing house, the 826 National network, and the nonprofit organisation ScholarMatch. He lives in Northern California with his family.

(from publisher)

Librarians’ comments

A novel about a woman who seeks refuge in the unpeopled landscape of Alaska. She tries to find herself again through solitude, silence and family.

A great story with believable characters, told with passion and humour.