My Abandonment - Paperback

by Peter Rock (Author)

NOW A MAJOR FILM, LEAVE NO TRACE. Inspired by a true story, a riveting and unsettling novel about a girl and her father who live off the grid, in the shadows at the edge of civilization.

Thirteen-year-old Caroline and her father live in Forest Park, an enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. They inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, wash in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water's edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts.

Once a week they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilized world. But one small mistake allows a backcountry jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence, ultimately provoking a deeper flight.

Told through the startlingly sincere voice of its young narrator, My Abandonment is a riveting journey into life at the margins and a mesmerizing tale of survival and hope.

Front Jacket

A thirteen-year-old girl and her father live in Forest Park, the enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. There they inhabit an elaborate cave shelter, bathe in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water s edge, use a makeshift septic system, tend a garden, even keep a library of sorts. Once a week, they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilized world. But one small mistake allows a backcountry jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence, ultimately provoking a deeper flight.
Inspired by a true story and told through the startlingly sincere voice of a young narrator, Caroline, Peter Rock's My Abandonment isa riveting journey intolife at the margins, and a mesmerizing tale of survival and hope. "

Back Jacket

Praise for MY ABANDONMENT: "This beautiful, strange novel takes us into the foreign country where those called homeless are at home, the city is wilderness, and the greater wilderness lies beyond.Fascinating and moving, it tells with great tenderness how human love goes wrong."-- Ursula Le Guin"Peter Rock's My Abandonment is an electrically charged, bone-deep and tender tale of loss and partial redemption. Surreal, haunting, elegiac." -- James Ellroy

"My Abandonment is purely dazzling, alive in every word and scene, so deep and strange in its rendering of this one young woman's life that I could hardly raise my eyes from the page."--Andrea Barrett

Author Biography

Peter Rock is the author of four previous novels, most recently The Bewildered, and a collection of stories, The Unsettling. He teaches writing at Reed College.