Excerpt from Treeborne by Caleb Johnson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She turned the page again and pointed at a girl with straight black hair touching bony shoulders. "There's me," she said, squinting as if to be sure. "Would of been the year before MawMaw May died—if I'm right."

"Do you still think about it?" the young man asked.

She closed the album. "I try to keep a routine for the sake of my mind, but there's only so much you can do now."

Janie Treeborne first received a notice from The Authority, say, three years ago. Plenty warning. The Hernando de Soto Dam had served its purpose for nearly eighty years. Her granddaddy, Hugh Treeborne, helped build it. Her daddy, Ren Treeborne, an engineer. Janie understood that if The Authority didn't implode the dam then its concrete would give to time and further neglect. A disaster would sure enough occur. The notice claimed there'd be payment for her property, relocation services, the works. Miss Treeborne, the letter called her, just needed to fill out the accompanying forms and mail them back. Janie knew how this story went. She took the notice and she deposited it right in the trash.

"The Fencepost sure does miss its big-talkers and bullshitters," she said. "I still hear their voices rattling around and around … Air here's always been full of voices to my mind. Pedro agrees and he abets with a daily dose of radio. Lets them dogs that's always running around sleep inside the station if it's cold or raining. When one comes up lame. He feeds them scraps. But, hellfire, I do too when they roam up here. Jon D. used to say one was going to give me rabies. Foot. I told you Pedro started reading out our names on the air. A roll call, I reckon. Lucky that us fourteen remaining can dial him in another day yet. For that much we're blessed. Pedro and me share a sense of humor. Laugh to keep from tears."

The young man wanted to know how Janie spent her days. What it was like living in Elberta now and what all she did.

"Sometimes after breakfast I'll drive out at The Seven and prowl around them woods for a spell—same way me and Crusoe did. You'll have to go by there. A Treeborne ain't lived on them seven hundred acres since Aunt Tammy moved here with me. Used to though, the highway'd be backed up nearly all the way into town with folks come to see what all Granddaddy Hugh—be your great-great—what all he painted and assemblied and left out yonder in them woods. I still call it The Seven instead of whatever the hell they named it. Some of them folks who ran the place treated me like I ought to be put on display alongside all them things he made. Art, not things. That word's always got away from me. Time, they wanted me to give a series of talks on it. On him. This was back in The Seven's heyday—eighties-early-nineties—when some loud awful band put Granddaddy Hugh's art on their record cover. Sold a million copies, they tell. Told them I was too busy to give talks, which was no more than part-truth."

Janie eased back down in her recliner. She fixed the hem of her gown over her liver-spotted legs then patted the arm of the chair two times.

"I'll tell you," she went on, "it's fools who claim the ones you're expecting to go ain't so bad as those you don't. Treebornes never have been long-lived though. Aunt Tammy lasted longest of her siblings. Daddy was the oldest, Uncle Luther, then her. I can't speak for the long-livedness of Malones, but Lee dying was bad on me, buddy. And me in my twenties when it happened. Not bad like MawMaw May, but bad. I was just a fool girl when she died. Like to of ruined us all."

Janie turned her head to better see the young man, gazing as if she'd only then recalled he was in the room. Blinded on one side most of her life, the damaged eye looked like the inside of a grape. The young man was growing used to it, though when Janie leaned forward and clasped his hand he startled.

Excerpted from Treeborne by Steven Johnson. Copyright © 2018 by Steven Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Picador. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.