Excerpt from Salvage This World by Michael Farris Smith, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She nodded in and out of sleep. When her eyes fell heavy she imagined strong arms and strong hands reaching for her though the dark, prying the child from her grasp and she would wake with a jerk to find herself squeezing the child so tightly he was struggling for freedom. She would stroke the back of his head and coax him back to sleep and her eyes stayed opened wide, watching the woods and watching for the arms and hands that approached in her dreams but then closing them again.

Finally there was light. She rubbed her eyes. Felt the warmth of the child's skin against her own. She did not want to wake him so she sat there and watched the morning come. Listened to the chirps and whistles and the movement of the early creatures. The child lifted his head and coughed. Opened his eyes and looked with question at his mother.

She kissed the boy on top of his head and said it's all right. It's all right. She then tucked the empty pistol into the back of her pants and she started them walking south, believing if she kept walking south they would run into Delcambre. Amidst the trees she would stop and listen for the hum of a highway. Set the boy down and rest a minute. Listen. Then he would cry to be carried again and she would tell him to hold on. Hush a second. But he was not concerned and he cried harder and made little mad fists and she would pick him up and start again.

In an hour she came to a clearing and the earth grew soft and heavy. The damp ground sucked at her feet and she set the child down and retied the laces on her boots. He wobbled and plopped down on his behind, a smack as his ass hit the wet ground. He screamed. Something different now than toddler whimpers. He screamed and shook and slapped at his own legs, redfaced and releasing as much anger as his little body could muster. And she propped her hands on her hips and looked down at him and said let it out. Let it all out, boy.

When he was done she reached down and helped him to his feet. The back of his pants muddy. He stood next to her and they both looked out across the marshland. Cranes stood on stumps. A flock of blackbirds rose from a clutter of young cypress and scattered across the low sky. The sun sat on the horizon and lathered the marsh in gold. It seemed beautiful to her in a way she had not expected.

But there was no time to admire. The child was now wet. And hungry and cold. She was hungry and cold. She didn't know where they were but she knew there was highway somewhere.

* * *

They circled around the edge of the marsh for at least an hour. Crossed into another wood where the trees thinned. The sun rose higher into a blue and cloudless sky. Their pace had slowed and the child slept with his head on his mother's shoulder. The pistol was cold and hard against the small of her back and every now and then she touched the pocket of her jeans, feeling the keys and making sure she had grabbed them and it was not part of a some hurried dream.

First she saw the smoke and she followed it until she was close enough to smell it. She came to the edge of the woods and stopped. Hid herself behind a tree. Saw the small cabin with the smoke rising from its chimney and a trailer next to it. A truck sat unevenly, propped up by a jack. A front tire missing. The hood raised. Behind the truck a hatchback sat running and the driver's door was open. A cloud of exhaust from the tailpipe as the heat met the cold.

A woman stood on the cabin porch with a lit cigarette. Then another woman joined her. She held a shovel and she leaned it against the doorframe. They both wore denim jackets with collars pushed up around their necks. Both stood with their hips propped while they smoked. They talked between inhales and exhales in one and two word sentences. When they were done smoking they flicked the butts into the dirt and one of them yelled out toward the trailer. Come on. We got shit to do.

Excerpted from Salvage This World by Zadie Smith. Copyright © 2023 by Zadie Smith. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.