The genius of Jess Walter's writing is both mercury and steel: never predictable, always reliable. Like all of Walter's work, So Far Gone combines strong pacing and quick wit as it looks squarely at its subject, a man fighting to save his family after years of self-imposed isolation. Rhys Kinnick is jolted out of his reclusive life on land outside Spokane, Wash., when a stranger deposits his grandchildren on his porch, although he fails at first to recognize them. Though it had been rocky for years, his relationship with his daughter, Bethany, broke at Thanksgiving in 2016, when Bethany's husband, Shane, pushed his conspiracy talk too far and Rhys punched him. But Rhys's decision to disappear is bigger and deeper than just a family rift. As he explains it, "At some point, you look around, and think, I don't belong here anymore. I don't want to have anything to do with any of this." But when Bethany disappears and armed members of Shane's church forcibly take his grandchildren, Rhys can no longer ignore the broken world from a safe distance.
Walter (Beautiful Ruins; The Angel of Rome) is known for his humor, and So Far Gone does have moments that may elicit a chuckle, but the tone overall is darker, covered with an all-too-familiar feeling of bitter helplessness. There are villainous actors here, men full of cruelties, but there are also complicated, broken men like Shane, who are innocence and guilt all in one. So Far Gone poses enduring questions like how to reconcile our hope for the world and our fear of the worst that may yet come. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian