North

A powerfully moving novel about the intertwined lives of a Vermont monk, a Somali refugee, and an Afghan war veteran, by the author of the acclaimed memoir Goat Song

As a late spring blizzard brews, Father Christopher, a cloistered monk at Blue Mountain Monastery in Vermont, rushes to tend to his Ida Red and Northern Spy apple trees in advance of the unseasonal storm. When snow brings a young Somali refugee, Sahro Abdi Muse, to the monastery, Christopher is pulled back into the world and their lives intersect in surprising and illuminating ways.

North traces the epic journey of Sahro from her home in Somalia throughout the Americas until her last attempt to cross into safety in Canada. It also traces the inner journeys of Father Christopher questioning his monastic way of life, and veteran Teddy Fletcher, who is seeking a way to make peace with his past.

Written in Brad Kessler’s sharp, beautiful prose and grounded in the author’s own experience among cloistered monks, resettled Somali refugees in Vermont, and local veterans, North gives voice to these invisible communities while investigating the idea of sanctuary and the hope of human connection in a time of displacement.

“A beautiful and moving tale, Kessler’s North is tender, dazzling, and wise.”—Annie Dillard, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek