Nobody Gets Out Alive

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

*A MOST ANTICIPATED book by Vogue, Literary Hub, The Millions, Good Housekeeping, and Oprah Daily*

From a prizewinning author comes an “electric...stunning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) debut story collection about women navigating the wilds of male-dominated Alaskan society.

Set in Newman’s home state of Alaska, Nobody Gets Out Alive is an exhilarating collection about women struggling to survive not just grizzly bears and charging moose, but the raw legacy of their marriages and families.

Alongside stories set in today’s Last Frontier—rife with suburban sprawl, global warming, and opioid addiction—Newman delves into remote wilderness of the 1970s and 80s, bringing to life young girls and single moms in search of a wilder, freer, more adventurous America. The final story takes place in a railroad camp in 1915, where an outspoken heiress stages an elaborate theatrical production in order to seduce the wife of her husband’s employer.

“Rich with wit and wisdom, showing us that love, marriage, and family are always a bigger and more perilous adventures than backcountry trips” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), these keenly observed stories prove there are some questions—about love, heartbreak, and the meaning of home—that can’t be outrun, no matter how hard we try. Nobody Gets Out Alive is a dazzling foil to the adventure narratives of old.

About the Author

Leigh Newman’s debut collection Nobody Gets Out Alive was longlisted for the National Book Award. Her stories have appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, The Best American Short Stories, One Story, Tin House, Electric Literature, American Short Fiction, and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern. Her memoir about growing up in Alaska, Still Points North, was a finalist for the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard prize. In 2020, she was awarded a Pushcart Fiction Prize and an American Society of Magazine Editor’s Fiction Prize, as well as received the Paris Review’s Terry Southern Prize for “humor, wit, and sprezzatura.” When not writing, she takes care of her two kids, two dogs, two chickens, and beloved, disgruntled cat.