Small World

Book excerpt: A New York Times Editors' Choice! One of Booklist’s “Top 10 Historical Fiction Novels of 2022” One of the Los Angeles Times's “10 Books to Add to Your Reading List” One of Book Culture's Most Anticipated Reads “A bighearted, widescreen American tale.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Masterpiece . . . The quintessential great American novel.”—Booklist (starred review) “A vivid mosaic.”—BookPage (starred review) Jonathan Evison’s Small World is an epic novel for now. Set against such iconic backdrops as the California gold rush, the development of the transcontinental railroad, and a speeding train of modern-day strangers forced together by fate, it is a grand entertainment that asks big questions. The characters of Small World connect in the most intriguing and meaningful ways, winning, breaking, and winning our hearts again. In exploring the passengers’ lives and those of their ancestors more than a century before, Small World chronicles 170 years of American nation-building from numerous points of view across place and time. And it does it with a fullhearted, full-throttle pace that asks on the most human, intimate scale whether it is truly possible to meet, and survive, the choices posed—and forced—by the age. The result is a historical epic with a Dickensian flair, a grand entertainment that asks whether our nation has made good on its promises. It dazzles as its characters come to connect with one another through time. And it hits home as it probes at our country’s injustices, big and small, straight through to its deeply satisfying final words.