The Vaster Wilds

I could not stop reading. A haunting, thrilling, gripping and rich. An unputdownable adventure, a mystery and a strange beautiful redemption -- Naomi Alderman
Groff is a mastermind, a masterpiece creator, an intoxicating magician. I wait with impatience for every book and I am always surprised and delighted.The Vaster Wilds feels like her bravest yet, hallucinatory, divine, beyond belief but also entirely human -- Daisy Johnson
There is something exhilarating about this novel, a velocity of ambition . . . Groff is not lost in the forest. She knows exactly where she is going * Guardian *
Her writing has a timeless quality . . . [Groff] has a nose for moments of transcendent, almost holy natural beauty * The Times *
Another September title that we've been desperately waiting for— Lauren Groff, author of Matrix is back, with an electrifying new novel set in early colonial America; seventeenth century Jamestown, to be precise. A servant girl is working for her mistress who has a disabled daughter. She is devoted to the family but then abruptly leaves, heading into the wilderness, with just a few items and a spiritual spark inside of her. This is the start of the servant girl's journey — an utterly thrilling adventure in which she discovers the world around her and tries to find a different way to live in the face of colonialism. Written in Goff's trademark visceral prose, this haunting book will stay with you long after you've finished it. Fact * Glamour *
Lauren Groff is one of the finest novelists of our age. Her writing is searingly beautiful - delicate and powerful at the same time. The voice of the unnamed girl is haunting and the descriptions of the wild lands are deliciously poetic. The Vaster Wilds first grabs you tenderly and then refuses to let go. It's exquisite, heart-wrenching and utterly mesmerising -- Andrea Wulf
As always, Groff’s prose is finely worked, with a poet’s eye for imagery (a porcupine walks “his bristles through the undergrowth with the weary pomp of a crowned prince”) and a visionary quality that recalls Matrix * Observer *
Groff writes in prose that sparkles . . . this beautifully written, soulful book is partly a fable and partly a treatise on greed: an exhortation for mankind to be satisfied with his lot, something we would all do well to heed * Spectator *
Of the many distinctions of this rich and visionary novel, perhaps the greatest is its prose. The Vaster Wilds presents us with a powerful alternative vision of the settlement of America: one not of a struggle between civilisation and savagery, in which European men felt “a need to set their boots upon everything they saw”, but of a resourceful young woman working with nature to establish a new life. Barack Obama picked two of Groff’s previous books — Fates and Furies in 2015 and Matrix in 2021 — as his novels of the year. It would be no surprise if The Vaster Wilds made it a third * Financial Times *
Groff’s prose is anointed with an agitated, near transcendent intensity…In setting her alongside the likes of Hernan Diaz, and his Pulitzer Prize- winning Trust (2022), Groff’s books makes her one of an exciting new generation of American novelists who are using fiction to rewrite the founding myths of the so- called Land of Liberty * Sunday Telegraph *
Her storytelling has such raw virtuosity that the book is hard to put down. A page-turner which should appeal to Bear Grylls fans and feminists alike * Mail on Sunday *
Between these memories, scenes mostly consist of the girl’s triumphs and misfortunes as she traverses the land. These make for gripping reading, the life-or-death implications made clear, even when the setback is as small as a mislaid pair of gloves. It is here that Groff’s spellbinding prose comes fully into play, as she describes the glory of the natural world, even in moments when it is at its most unforgiving * iNews *
It’s a novel of bleakness and beauty, as the relentless demands of eking out a life wreck her ‘good strong dancing body’, while the wonders of nature leave her spirit ‘ravished' * Daily Mail *
A dazzlingly clever tale . . . gorgeously precise prose, always elegantly weighted and perfectly economical * The Times on MATRIX *
Pitch-perfect * Telegraph on MATRIX *
Breathtaking * Financial Times on MATRIX *