Critical Praise

"My real problem with Jeffrey Lent's Lost Nation is figuring out whether it is a masterpiece or simply an American classic. This is an age of obtuse hyperbole but I don't recall a recent novel more worthy of the traditional nine bows, a novel that more ruthlessly examines the nearly ancient roots of what we are today."

——Jim Harrison

"A rousing tale that will surely please the readers of his first, best-selling novel, In the Fall."

——Publishers Weekly

"Lost Nation is a unique novel about borders, about memory, about imagination, about the age-old dream of becoming a better man by moving to a different place. Jeffrey Lent's genius is that he recognises that wherever we are now is wherever we have been, that we will always in some sense be both rooted and uprooted. Beautifully written, intricately paced, dark, fierce and often funny, Lost Nation is part love story, part parable, and part east-coast western. With his second novel Lent has already created his own undisputed territory in American literature."

——Colum McCann

"A remarkable command of atmosphere…In intensely charged prose very reminiscent of Faulkner's, Lent spins the mesmerizing tale of Blood's establishment as a prosperous tavern keeper…Blood is a magnificently dramatic figure, Lear-like in his stoical resolve…Lost Nation further satisfies as a suggestive allegory of a fledging civilization's loss of innocence."

——Kirkus Reviews (starred review).