Hachette India

My Abandonment

Peter Rock

'A beautiful, strange novel . . . Fascinating and moving, it tells with great tenderness how human love goes wrong' Ursula K. Le Guin

'The recent novel I recommend most . . . a short, disciplined, unsettling book' Hanya Yanagihara

Thirteen-year-old Caroline and her father live in Forest Park, an enormous nature preserve in Portland, Oregon. Day to day, they live in an elaborate cave shelter, wash in a nearby creek, store perishables at the water's edge, tend a garden and even keep a library of sorts. Once a week they go to the city to buy groceries and otherwise merge with the civilised world. But one small mistake allows a jogger to discover them, which derails their entire existence.

Inspired by a true story and told through the startlingly sincere voice of its young narrator, Caroline, My Abandonment is a gripping journey into life in the wilderness and a mesmerizing tale of survival and hope.

Peter Rock

Peter Rock was born and raised in Salt Lake City. My Abandonment won an Alex Award the Utah Book Award and been published in various countries and languages. Rock attended Deep Springs College received a BA in English from Yale University and held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. He has taught fiction at the University of Pennsylvania Yale Deep Springs College and in the MFA program at San Francisco State University. His stories and freelance writing have both appeared and been anthologised widely. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and other awards he currently lives in Portland Oregon where he teaches writing at Reed College.