Lightest Object in the Universe

A Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection * An Indie Next Pick * An Indies Introduce Selection *  One of Reader’s Digest’s Best Summer Books of 2019  * One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Books of 2019 * One of Real Simple’s Best Books of 2019 
 
“[This] might be the most optimistic post-apocalyptic story ever written. It’s Sleepless in Seattle meets Station Eleven.” —The A.V. Club
 
 Carson is on the East Coast when the electrical grid goes down. Desperate to find Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart, he sets off along a cross-country railroad line, where he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those seeking salvation. Meanwhile, Beatrix and her neighbors begin to construct a cooperative community, working to turn the end of the world into the possibility of a bright beginning.
 
Without modern means of communication, will Beatrix and Carson be able to find their way to each other? The answer may lie with one fifteen-year-old girl, whose actions could ultimately decide the fate of the lovers.
 
The Lightest Object in the Universe is a moving story about adaptation and the power of community, imagining a world where our best traits, born of necessity, can begin to emerge.
 

Kimi Eisele is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Longreads, Orion Magazine, High Country News, and elsewhere. She holds a master’s degree in geography from the University of Arizona, where in 1998 she founded You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography. She has received grants from the Arts Foundation of Southern Arizona, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, the Kresge Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She lives in Tucson and works for the Southwest Folklife Alliance. This is her first novel.