“Stunning . . . the poetic detail of Stegner’s sentences”
—New York Times Book Review of Because a Fire Was in My Head, Editors’ Choice
BOOKS
The Half-Life of Guilt
Where the raw edge of the past meets the promise of tomorrow, a harrowing story of guilt and redemption . . .
The Half-Life of Guilt
by Lynn Stegner
Length: 280 pages
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, High Road Books
Publication date: September 3, 2024
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0826366887 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-0826366894 (ePub)
hardcover | ebook
Soon available where all fine books are sold.
For events, interviews, and any other publicity related to this book, contact Mary Bisbee-Beek.
Lynn Stegner’s fiction has drawn comparisons to the works of Margaret Atwood, Barbara Kingsolver, and Alice Munro. In her new novel, The Half-Life of Guilt, Stegner tells the story of Clair Bugato, a biologist, and Mason Comstock, a photojournalist. Together they journey to a remote area of Baja California, Mexico, to the world’s largest saltworks, where a proposed expansion threatens the California gray whale population, recently come back from the brink of extinction.
In the midst of an international conservation battle, they meet a mysterious son of Mexico, Rubio Cantú, who leads them to the powers that be—his father. Their two-week journey sends Clair deep into the past where, step by step, she reviews the divergent paths she and her near-identical twin sister have taken away from a childhood tragedy. At the same time, Mason comes to terms with his own unhappy past in Cornwall, England, and with a father whose hate was stronger than his love.
No other work of fiction patterns the warp and weft of human guilt, the homesickness only love can cure, environmental crises, the intrinsic conflict between international commerce and planetary health, and the necessity of forgiveness. The Half-Life of Guilt is woven from these themes, delivering to the reader a transformative and engrossing literary experience.
Reviews
“The Half Life of Guilt adroitly braids paired narratives: a risk-filled present journey down the coast of Mexico and the fraught past of a family in northern California. The twins at the center of the story—Nina and Clair—compel our close attention, and the novel somehow manages to be both action-packed and contemplative. Lynn Stegner gives us scientists and vintners and idealists and cynics: troubled creatures all. And she does so in prose as vivid as her scenery; the dead remain wholly alive.”
—Nicholas Delbanco, author of Why Writing Matters
“As Stegner explores both personal responsibility and our responsibility to care for the natural world, she illuminates the ways we love, fail to love, and repair our failures. Her unique sensibility makes for a fascinating read.”
—Andrea Barrett, author of Natural History and Ship Fever
“In this beautiful and layered novel Lynn Stegner takes us on a gritty road trip between two of the most vivid gardens in American literature. They are radical opposites, the tender vines of Napa and the salty recesses of the gray whale rookery at Baja, united by one woman’s fierce moral compass. Clair’s journey is a passionate tour of self-discovery and family history written so closely and with such astonishing sincerity that the entire novel becomes a kind of surprising tenderness. Clair wakes to the vast primordial world; she sees every feature and knows the heartfelt calculations of each. Lynn Stegner has the writer’s gift of creating a dear victory from the uneasiness of pristine places. This is a rich, rich book.”
—Ron Carlson, author of Return to Oakpine
“The Half-Life of Guilt is a powerful tale of family loyalty, romantic love, and the long reach of a single, shocking childhood tragedy. Lynn Stegner has a profound understanding of how sisters relate—or fail to relate—and how the truth of the past can be lost to our misperceptions. This sobering and insightful story is beautifully told.”
—Elizabeth Crook, author of The Madstone and The Which Way Tree
“Lynn Stegner is a beautiful writer. This fiercely wrought family saga will take your breath away with its sharpness and depth.”
—Rick Bass, author of With Every Great Breath