In her latest novel, Téa Obreht returns to the American West, weaving together multiple time periods and perspectives to explore themes of memory, myth, and moral ambiguity. Published in 2024, *Sunrise* revisits the rugged landscapes of Wyoming, a setting reminiscent of her previous work, and unfolds through a layered narrative that spans more than a century.
The story begins in August 2024 with Nina Terzic, a postgraduate student and live-in nanny from New York, who survives a plane crash in the mountains of Wyoming. After swimming to shore, she discovers the remains of a woman hidden in a cellar within an abandoned mining ghost town. A manuscript found alongside the body serves as a conduit to the town's past.
The novel’s middle section transports readers to 1902, when Sunrise was a functioning mountain mining community. Anton Vargas, a man with a complicated reputation, returns to the town after a lengthy absence. Once celebrated for his role alongside Deputy Fred Kipley in a shootout against local bandits—a tale that became romanticized in dime-store novels and traveling shows—Vargas now confronts unresolved matters as his health declines. Kipley, unlike others, remains familiar with Vargas’s true nature and their shared history.
Fast-forwarding to 2003, Sunrise has become a ghost town that draws tourists intrigued by Western lore. Colin Yard, who performs reenactments of Vargas’s exploits, finds his livelihood tested when writer Louise Hawley arrives with a newly written novel about Vargas. Louise brings fresh insights which challenge the established hero narrative, revealing complexities behind the town’s history.
Throughout this section, Obreht explores evolving local dynamics. Colin’s uneasy relationship with the town’s troublemaker, Bob Fournier, underscores a community riddled with fear and moral compromise. Colin’s failure to confront Bob’s aggression not only endangers himself but reflects a wider moral reckoning simmering beneath the town’s surface.
Obreht’s depiction of Colin Yard’s descent from favored son to scapegoat serves as a poignant study in the manipulation of history and power. Parallel to this is the character John Daisy, a wealthy landowner featured in Louise’s fictionalized account of Sunrise in 1902, whose patronage of Native American artifacts contrasts sharply with his disregard for living indigenous people.
Set against the harsh and haunting Wyoming landscape, *Sunrise* engages with enduring questions of legacy and identity through intertwined stories that bridge past and present. Obreht’s narrative invites readers to reconsider the myths of the American frontier and to confront the ghosts—both literal and metaphorical—that inhabit the old West.