From the visionary author of the internationally bestselling The Book of Joan comes an epic novel tracing the construction of a colossal statue – and the lives of two centuries of immigrants navigating its turbulent wake
Laisve is a refugee in a destroyed city-island, hunted in Raids and haunted by the spirits of her drowned mother and brother. She dives into the river and finds herself travelling between times and waterways in a race to rescue the future – and past – of other lost children.
A Lenape Nation iron-walker, a Dominican nun, a scarred acrobat and a piebald man are risking their lives constructing a colossal monument to freedom for a young and bustling nation. But exactly what – and whom – will that liberty represent?
As Laisve drifts into their histories, she schools seekers in the ways of dreams, love and the ultimate aim of liberty – to free the next generation from the chains of this one.
“A long, disturbing dream … a fascinating, unsettling ride”
guardian
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“There’s so much that feels deeply present about Yuknavitch’s latest novel: the ever-expanding police state, lower Manhattan under water and a woman on a mission to rescue other vulnerable women. Yuknavitch’s words are incantations, and Thrust is a triumph”
elle
“An indignant and impressive novel”
new York Times
“Moving and incisive”
time
“This weirdly wonderful [novel] on the surveillance state, climate change, and what it means to have agency as a woman in the world will throw your mind for a loop in the best way”
good Housekeeping
Lidia Yuknavitch is the internationally bestselling author of the novels The Book of Joan, The Small Backs of Children and Dora: A Headcase, and of the memoir The Chronology of Water. She is the recipient of two Oregon Book Awards and has been a finalist for the PEN Center USA Creative Nonfiction Award. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
@LidiaYuknavitch | lidiayuknavitch.net