So Far Gone, Jess Walter

Walter’s novel centers on Rhys Kinnick, a reclusive environmental journalist forced back into society by family crisis. Rhys, who has spent years in self-imposed exile wrestling with regret, trauma, and intellectual separation, finds his world upended when his daughter, Bethany, sends her children to stay with him, fleeing the dangers of their stepfather's ties to a Christian Nationalist militia. I liked how Walter's characters are deeply drawn and real: Rhys is neither hero nor antihero but a flawed man, haunted by past failures and struggling to reconnect with his grandchildren, Leah and Asher. The children’s experiences and reactions to the family’s fractured reality are rendered with pragmatism.

The book probes the limits and responsibilities of isolation, asking if withdrawal from a broken society is truly possible or even morally defensible when family and connection call. Rhys's journey becomes an exploration of redemption, the price of detachment, and the search for meaning amid chaos. It makes you think about broader cultural impulses to separation or hide from extremism, and is such retreat sustainable nor justifiable. The novel’s conclusion is hopeful but not naïve. Walter acknowledges that every character is ‘so far gone’ in their own way, but insists through their struggles that healing and reconnection remain possible, one relationship repaired at a time.