'A masterpiece... one of the best prose writers in our time' Michael OndaatjeRobert Grainier is a day labourer in the American West, felling the trees that feed the railways. It is the start of the twentieth century, and the world is changing at a rapid pace.

Life is fragile in the wilds of the frontier; disease and forest fires are rife. Buffeted by the loss of his family, Grainier journeys, struggling to make sense of the bewildering changes transforming the nation. Rich and muscular, sweep...

INCLUDED IN THE BEST OF GRANTA SERIES: an epic miniature of one man's life journey through the American West at the turn of the twentieth century.