Dreaming Northward
“Sheer reading pleasure; at turns funny, heartbreaking, suspenseful, and cathartic. For years, Lancaster has been delivering gritty, unforgettable human dramas about everyday people navigating troubled pasts and unknown futures, and
Dreaming Northward just might be his best effort to date.”
Jonathan Evison, author of Small World and Lawn Boy
Dreaming Northward just might be his best effort to date.”
Jonathan Evison, author of Small World and Lawn Boy
COMING SOON
From acclaimed author Craig Lancaster comes a story of family violence, dysfunction, and, perhaps, redemption, told across four timelines.
More than a decade into the 21st century, Nate Ray is down and in the final throes before he’s out for good. He has burned through jobs and the goodwill of others, including his son, Brandon. When Nate’s dad, Ronnie, summons him for a trip from Texas to Montana to bury Ronnie’s sister, Nate’s self-destruction is put on hold but new and long-buried issues arise.
Forty years earlier, in Wyoming, Electra Ray plots an escape to an uncertain future, for herself and her five-year-old son. A new friend awaits on the other end, three states away, but first Electra must break cleanly away from the bonds of a neglectful present.
In 2002, recent high school graduate Cherie Bowden is helping her mother settle her grandma’s estate in Billings, Montana, and is already deferring her own dreams. She comes across information that makes her question everything she thinks she knows about the people she comes from.
And in early 1950s Montana, Ronnie Ray, sixteen years old, estranged from the father he barely knows, and on the run from an abusive home life, reaches faithfully toward a connection.
In his latest novel, Lancaster, who has been hailed as “one of Montana’s most important writers,” goes deep into how history shapes and confines us and how hope sometimes stubbornly abides.
From acclaimed author Craig Lancaster comes a story of family violence, dysfunction, and, perhaps, redemption, told across four timelines.
More than a decade into the 21st century, Nate Ray is down and in the final throes before he’s out for good. He has burned through jobs and the goodwill of others, including his son, Brandon. When Nate’s dad, Ronnie, summons him for a trip from Texas to Montana to bury Ronnie’s sister, Nate’s self-destruction is put on hold but new and long-buried issues arise.
Forty years earlier, in Wyoming, Electra Ray plots an escape to an uncertain future, for herself and her five-year-old son. A new friend awaits on the other end, three states away, but first Electra must break cleanly away from the bonds of a neglectful present.
In 2002, recent high school graduate Cherie Bowden is helping her mother settle her grandma’s estate in Billings, Montana, and is already deferring her own dreams. She comes across information that makes her question everything she thinks she knows about the people she comes from.
And in early 1950s Montana, Ronnie Ray, sixteen years old, estranged from the father he barely knows, and on the run from an abusive home life, reaches faithfully toward a connection.
In his latest novel, Lancaster, who has been hailed as “one of Montana’s most important writers,” goes deep into how history shapes and confines us and how hope sometimes stubbornly abides.
Formats: Hardcover, e-book, audiobook
RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2024
PUBLISHER: The Story Plant
ISBN-13: 978-1611883534
RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2024
PUBLISHER: The Story Plant
ISBN-13: 978-1611883534
PRAISE FOR DREAMING NORTHWARD
“With Dreaming Northward, Lancaster taps his rich Texas roots of poverty, displacement, and tangled family troubles in the story of a man who road trips to Montana with nothing left to lose. Tumbled through generations of a hard-luck family that led to Nate Ray’s current predicament, Lancaster’s characters may not always be likable, but boy are they recognizable, and all too close to home. Lancaster’s exquisite attention to their bad choices makes readers feel seen, chronicled by a tender biographer—even a little redeemed.”--Carrie La Seur, award-winning author of The Home Place and The Weight of an Infinite Sky
“Craig Lancaster gives us the eternal mystery of family and the tangled webs across generations, with a cast of disparate yet wholly realized characters whose various struggles, questions, faultlines and quiet triumphs quickly become our own. Poignant, big-hearted, and as always, beautifully rendered.”--Malcolm Brooks, author of Painted Horses and Cloudmaker
“There is something true and honest on every single page of this right hook of a novel. Craig Lancaster’s Dreaming Northward follows the entwined lives of people who’ve never known anything but hard times and who’ve never known the word quit.”--Giano Cromley, author of The Prince
of Infinite Space and The Last Good Halloween
“A masterful storyteller, Craig Lancaster reveals the family’s secrets one slice at a time in this novel of fathers and sons who never quite get it right.”--Cheryl Unruh, author Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town
“With Dreaming Northward, Lancaster taps his rich Texas roots of poverty, displacement, and tangled family troubles in the story of a man who road trips to Montana with nothing left to lose. Tumbled through generations of a hard-luck family that led to Nate Ray’s current predicament, Lancaster’s characters may not always be likable, but boy are they recognizable, and all too close to home. Lancaster’s exquisite attention to their bad choices makes readers feel seen, chronicled by a tender biographer—even a little redeemed.”--Carrie La Seur, award-winning author of The Home Place and The Weight of an Infinite Sky
“Craig Lancaster gives us the eternal mystery of family and the tangled webs across generations, with a cast of disparate yet wholly realized characters whose various struggles, questions, faultlines and quiet triumphs quickly become our own. Poignant, big-hearted, and as always, beautifully rendered.”--Malcolm Brooks, author of Painted Horses and Cloudmaker
“There is something true and honest on every single page of this right hook of a novel. Craig Lancaster’s Dreaming Northward follows the entwined lives of people who’ve never known anything but hard times and who’ve never known the word quit.”--Giano Cromley, author of The Prince
of Infinite Space and The Last Good Halloween
“A masterful storyteller, Craig Lancaster reveals the family’s secrets one slice at a time in this novel of fathers and sons who never quite get it right.”--Cheryl Unruh, author Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town