The Vaster Wilds

By Lauren Groff

Riverhead, September 12, 2023

A taut and electrifying novel from celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, about one spirited girl alone in the wilderness, trying to survive

A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.

Selected Praise

“An electric reimagining . . . feminist, sensual . . . unforgettable.” – O, The Oprah Magazine, on Matrix

“Thrilling and heartbreaking.” –Time Magazine, on Matrix

“[A] page-by-page pleasure as we soar with her.” –The New York Times, on Matrix

About the Author

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and the New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies and Matrix, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the PEN/O. Henry Award, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere.