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Book Summary and Reviews of The Entire Sky by Joe Wilkins

The Entire Sky by Joe Wilkins

The Entire Sky

A Novel

by Joe Wilkins

  • Published:
  • Jul 2024, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

With echoes of Demon Copperhead and Plainsong, a poignant story about a troubled boy on the run, an aging rancher, and a woman at a crossroads, who find unexpected solace and kinship in the family they make.

With his long hair and penchant for guitar, teenage Justin is the spitting image of his idol, Kurt Cobain—a resemblance that has often marked him an outcast. When the long-simmering abuse from his uncle finally boils over, Justin has no choice but to break free, in a violent act that will haunt him, and try to make it on his own as a runaway.

Meanwhile, in rural Montana, Rene Bouchard, a rancher nearing retirement, grieves the recent death of his wife. Her passing has revealed precisely how fractured the family has become—particularly the relationship between Rene and his daughter, Lianne. As old wounds ache anew, father and daughter begin to doubt the possibility of reconciliation, even as they each privately yearn for it.

Justin's wanderings bring him to the Bouchard family ranch, and soon Rene and Lianne take the boy in as their own. But before long, Justin's past threatens to catch up with him, jeopardizing not only his new bond with Rene and Lianne but also the home he's finally been able to claim. With its lyricism, tangible evocation of place, and piercing insight reminiscent of the novels of Barbara Kingsolver and Kent Haruf, The Entire Sky is an unforgettable piece of modern, American fiction.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. Each of the three main characters—Justin, Rene, and Lianne—have, in some ways, run away. What are they running from? What personal, social, economic, and other forces are pushing on each of them? Is running away sometimes a reasonable answer? When? And why? What does it accomplish for each of these characters?
  2. In what ways does the novel's structure—moving back and forth in time between April 1994 and Before—influence the story and your perceptions of the characters? Must we know and understand the past to move forward? Or are there times we ought to forget? Where do you see remembering and forgetting in the novel?
  3. Poverty, abandonment, abuse—Justin has had to deal with far more than any ...
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Reviews

Media Reviews

"In desolate, scenic Montana, this novel of lost souls shows them finding themselves in each other ... The Entire Sky is emotionally powerful and richly descriptive, rapturous in its evocation of the big skies and vast expanse and the lives that have come to seem so small and empty ... The tale builds with inexorable tension, revealing what has happened, and what could. This is no country for sensitive boys. It's a novel of flight or fight, of finding family and a home and a reason to live." ―Kirkus Reviews

"Joe Wilkins's The Entire Sky exposes with strength and poetry the unjust pain of toxic masculinity and the profound damage it wages on children. In these pages a different potential for manhood is turned over and examined, one that allows for gentleness, healing, acceptance, grace. Wilkins gives an exquisite depth to the Montana landscape and to his characters—this is a textured, bloody, and breathtaking book." ―Sharma Shields, award-winning author of The Cassandra and The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac

"The Entire Sky is a beautifully written and deeply touching novel about a boy searching for safety and peace, a woman torn between the life she knows well and the new one she and her husband have created, and a man fighting to heal from loss and confronting the passage of time. Each of these characters will stick with me for a long time. I'll read anything Joe Wilkins writes." ―De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of In West Mills, winner of the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

This information about The Entire Sky was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Joe Wilkins

Joe Wilkins is the author of the novel Fall Back Down When I Die, which was short-listed for the First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, and the award-winning memoir The Mountain and the Fathers. He has published four books of poetry, including Thieve and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award, and his stories, essays, and poems have appeared in the Georgia Review, the Harvard Review, Orion, and elsewhere. He is a Pushcart Prize winner, a three-time High Plains Book Award winner, and a finalist for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, the National Magazine Award, and the PEN/USA Award. He lives with his wife and two children in western Oregon, where he teaches writing at Linfield University.

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