Homestead

For Lawrence, born in the Great Depression and a veteran of the Korean War, his parcel of 150 acres in the Alaska wilderness is an opportunity to finally belong in a world that has never delivered on its promise. For Marie, their homestead is an escape from the empty future she sees spinning out before her. For both, a risky bet is better than none at all. But over the next few years, as they work the land in an attempt to secure a deed to their homestead, they must face everything they don’t know about each other.

With its subtle but riveting portrait of a marriage in the process of becoming—or unraveling—Homestead offers a bracing alternative to the man-against-nature trope popularized by Jack London in the 19th century.

Born in Alaska, Melinda Moustakis grew up in California and now lives in Colorado. Her first book, a story collection titled Bear Down, Bear North, won the Flannery O’Connor Award and the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Prize. Her second book, Homestead, has won her comparisons to Alice Munro, Marilynne Robinson, and Annie Proulx. The novel was inspired by the story of Ms. Moustakis’ grandparents who met in Alaska, married impulsively, then spent their early days together living in a school bus on a remote parcel of land they hoped eventually to prove up on.

In this podcast, Melinda Moustakis describes the thought experiment that led her to write Homestead: “What would it be like to be stuck living in an old school bus in the Alaska wilderness, through the winter, with a stranger?”

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Join us

Melinda Moustakis will be at Colgate on Thursday, Oct. 26, at 4:30 p.m. EDT. Join us physically in the Persson Hall auditorium or register to join us virtually via Zoom. The in-person audience will be able to participate in a post-reading Q&A and book-signing. Everyone is welcome. Admission is free.

Want to find out what thoughtful readers are saying about Homestead? Join Colgate faculty and students on Monday, Oct. 30, from 7-8 p.m. EDT for a conversation about all three October Living Writers books. (No preparation is required.) Register here.

Go beyond the book

“The language of homesteading is the language of argument, of making a case for oneself,” writes Claire Luchette in this review for the New York Times.
If you’re a fan of Alice Munro and Marilynne Robinson, then Homestead is for you, says Michael Schaub in this NPR review.
This interview with Danielle Evans (Living Writers ’21) is on the long side but so worthwhile. Ms. Moustakis talks about how she did the research for her first novel and also how she arrived at the unusual form of it.
This BLM site offers a brief history and description of how the 1862 Homestead Act played out in Alaska. And it has pictures.