LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
‘I didn’t want Nobody Gets Out Alive to end – to have to leave behind its warmth and soul and glittering writing, its honesty and its laughter in the dark’ Jonathan Lee, author of The Great Mistake
Set in Leigh Newman’s home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is a collection of dazzling, courageous stories about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose but the raw, exhausting legacy of their marriages and families. In ‘Howl Palace’, an aging widow struggles with a rogue hunting dog and the memories of her five ex-husbands while selling her house after bankruptcy. In the title story, ‘Nobody Gets Out Alive’, newly married Katrina visits her hometown of Anchorage and blows up her own wedding reception by flirting with the host and running off with an enormous mastodon tusk.
Alongside stories set in today’s Last Frontier – rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction – Newman delves into the remote wilderness of the 1970s and 80s, bringing to life young girls and single moms in search of a freer, more adventurous America.
