“Every once in a while a character in American literature knocks you flat:
for wit, imagination, resilience, wisdom. Meet Joan Mudgett. Who, at fourteen, lives on her own in a farm house beneath Jumper Mountain, outside a small village in New Hampshire. She cross country skis in the middle of the night, reads Moby-Dick obsessively, makes good money from star gazers who come to her field to view the northern lights, and actually goes to school. Her view of the world, like Huck Finn’s, has been colored by traumatic events but remains generous and satirical. One night a raven lands beside her campfire and declares himself in plain English to be the archangel Gabriel, and Joan’s world is upended. I loved this book. I laughed out loud. I appreciated the deep and particular sense of place, and I treasured its insights.”
—Peter Heller, author of The Dog Stars and The Guide
