Holly Goddard Jones Book order

2022 The Story Prize LonglistA harried and depressed mother of three young children serves on a committee that watches over the bottomless sinkhole that has appeared in her Kentucky town. During COVID lockdown, a thirty-four-year-old gamer moves back home with his parents and is revisited by his long-forgotten childhood imaginary friend. A politician running for a state congressional seat and a young mother, who share the same set of fears about the future, cross paths but don’t fully understand one another. A woman attends a party at the home of a fellow church parishioner and discovers she is on the receiving end of a sales pitch for a doomsday prepper.These stories and more contemplate our current reality with both frankness and hard-earned hopefulness, realism and fabulism, tackling parenthood, environment, and the absurd-but-unavoidable daily toil of worrying about mundane matters when we’ve entered “an era of unknowability, of persistent strangeness.” 

Set against a dystopian backdrop, the narrative follows a group of thrill-seekers who engage in the dangerous act of jumping "the salt line." Through their harrowing experiences, the story explores themes of survival and the essence of humanity. Award-winning novelist Holly Goddard Jones weaves a gripping tale that combines literary depth with the excitement of adventure, reminiscent of works like Station Eleven and California.

A brilliantly nuanced, psychologically astute crime debut that explores the fault-lines of a small community - their hidden desires and their other, secret selves.

Exploring the complexities of morality, the narrative delves into the lives of small-town Southerners grappling with their desires to be virtuous amidst uncertainty. Through rich character development, the story reveals the struggles and contradictions inherent in the pursuit of goodness, providing a poignant look at human nature and community dynamics.