Girl in Landscape

Anyone who wonders why Jonathan Lethem is the only novelist to be included among Newsweek's "100 People for the New Century" need only read his deliriously original new book, a science fiction/Western that combines the tragic momentum of The Searchers with the sexual tension of Lolita.

At the age of 13, Pella Marsh emigrates with her family to the Planet of the Archbuilders. These enigmatic aborigines have names like Lonely Dumptruck and and Hiding Kneel--and a civilization that baffles and frightens their human visitors.

As the spikily independent Pella becomes an uneasy envoy between two species, Girl in Landscape deftly interweaves themes of exploration and otherness, loss and sexual awakening.

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Jonathan Lethem is the author of five novels, including Motherless Brooklyn, which won the National Book Critics Award. He is also the author of the story collection The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye and the novella This Shape We're In. His writings have appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Harper’s, The Paris Review, McSweeney's, and many other periodicals. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.