900 Miles

Every lottery fantasy skips the hard part: what you'd do with the money. Christina wins a fortune, tells no one, and drives 900 miles while figuring it out. Queer, wry, quietly hopeful literary fiction.

Sudden luck strikes the one person who won't share the news.

It's a mega win on a weekly lotto ticket; a ton of cash.

But even though Christina's howls of triumph scare the cat, she can't tell her stepdad Harrison. Not even when a frustrated, off-the-cuff retort to a co-worker sets her free from a newspaper job she no longer needs anyway.

She fills notebook pages with bucket lists, but can't bring herself to just pick any. Wanting but not letting herself have, that's Christina all over.

But bit by bit, Christina's horizon widens. She lucks into a newer, quirkier job (to hide her win from Harrison), and the new office opens a whole new world right on her doorstep. When a black and white photograph helps her to discover friends of the finest kinds, fate wheels Christina on a 900-mile road trip to confront the young woman she could be, but can't yet face in the mirror.

For readers of Fredrik Backman, Anne Tyler and Rachel Joyce, but sharper around the edges, and unafraid to let its protagonist take their time and grow as gently as she needs to. Runyon builds a novel out of vignettes and near silences: what a person can't ask for, can't accept, can't yet believe is theirs. There's wit here too, and an authentic feeling for how fandoms and online friendship become someone's first honest community. A windfall story that spends its money on unhurried knowing.

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"What impressed me about 900 Miles is the psychology of early emotional neglect: Christina can't easily spend her money because she's internalised the message that having stuff isn't for her. A Californian coming-of-age story bringing a more nuanced perspective to the usual sudden-riches narratives." - Anne Goodwin, Polari Prize shortlisted author and psychologist

"It is remarkable to see such growth in an individual character... I've read some trilogies that don't quite manage this, and yet what Runyon does for Christina is not only believable, it is a privilege to witness." - Adam Burgess, Roof Beam Reader

Please note: This novel contains a suicide (off-page).

E.J. Runyon lives in the US Northeast. Since 2002 she's found herself moving on to smaller and smaller desert towns, while working to become the author and writing coach she planned to be.First, she quit working in software and sold her home to finance her degree in Creative Writing and her Grad-work in Online Teaching and Learning. She's never looked back.Now, she lives in her own 'tiny hobbit house' while her life revolves around her own writing and, you know, being a better person day to day.