Dave's Book Blog: "Sunrise" by Tea Obreht

Tuesday, 6 October 2026

"Sunrise" by Tea Obreht

Three stories, joined in a sandwich structure, so that 'An incident over Horsebone Lake' is split into two parts and arranged first and last, 'An incident at Burnt Creek on the occasion of a homecoming' is split into two parts and arranged 2nd and 4th, and 'An incident at the cabin bar outside the town of Salt Draw' is, in its entirety, in the middle. This arrangement reminded me of similar arrangement of the stories in Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell except that where they are linked by theme, the stories in Obreht's book are linked by taking place in the town of Sunrise, and by the author of a book about the main character in the 2nd (and 4th) story; a tape used for her research being more or less in the centre of the book.

And there is a very neat twist in the end. And another in the last couple of pages.

In terms of style, tone, or genre, it is a bit of a portmanteau. The first (and last) story is about Nina trying to survive after falling from a plane into a lake in the wilderness. The second (and fourth) story is about a legendary gunslinger returning to the town where he became famous. And the middle story is about the director of the annual theatrical event in memory of the gunslinger.

All the stories are told from the 3rd person limited PoV of the protagonist. The outside story is told in the present tense, the others in the past tense. Each of the plots made me want to read to the end: the plane crash story because the protagonist was battling for her life against the wilderness, the western story to solve the mystery of his the protagonist died, and the central story because I wanted to understand how these three apparently unrelated narratives fitted.

The central characters were all well developed. Nina, the plane crash survivor, is as stressed and disorganised as anyone would be in similar circumstances ... even if they made it to the beach. Anton Vargas, the notorious gunslinger returning old and terminally ill to the town that turned him into a dime-novel hero, is perhaps too tough to be true. But Coll, the local historian, who isn't quite brave enough to stand up to a local delinquent with a dismembered wolf, is the embodiment of conflict between what we all wish we would do and the lesser reality.

This is a novel about truth and myth making. There are also doses of fantasy. Anton's badger dream is significant to the plot, but to what extent is Nina's sighting of Ben a hallucination? As for the dreadful wolf disease which seems to be able to pick and choose its victims ...

Fundamentally, it was well-written and well-told and I enjoyed reading it. But I'm not sure it compares with the best in these genres. For a story about a horse-riding posse trying to survive in the mountains, I preferred Pity the Beast by Robin Maclean.

Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife won the 2011 Women's Prize for Fiction

Selected quotes:

“She's fighting the chaos of the moment, the sense that she's been teleported into this cold horror.” (An incident over Horsebone Lake #1, day 1)
“Only a magpie soundlessly spearing worms out of the ground.” (An incident over Horsebone Lake #1 day 3)
“The impulse to signal for intrusion with yet another ‘hello’ doesn't quite override her terror of receiving a response. What would she actually do if something said ‘hello’ back? It wouldn't be a living thing. She knows that.” (An incident over Horsebone Lake #1, day 3)
“Her whole life has come down to the mathematics of loss.” (An incident over Horsebone Lake #1, day 3)
“If Nina had ever laid eyes on Death, she would have taken his hand right away. She wouldn't have hung on for a night under the rubble, like her mother had. She had no fight in her at all.” (An incident over Horsebone Lake #1, day 4)
“It was still quite dark, but he could see the serration of distant mountains taking on the first pink of dawn. In a few days, Preacher would tell him this was called alpenglow.” (An incident at Burnt Creek on the occasion of a homecoming #1)
“Gum-cudding.” (An incident at the cabin bar outside the town of Salt Draw)
“A dress so yellow his beleaguered brain smelled lemons when he saw it.” (An incident at the cabin bar outside the town of Salt Draw)
“Bobby's whole face was straining with thought.” (An incident at the cabin bar outside the town of Salt Draw)
“Every sinner on the torchlit lawn before him, even the white-haired men leaning on canes, had more time in his hourglass then did Vargas.” (An incident at Burnt Creek on the occasion of a homecoming #2)
“He didn't even like the spring. Didn't long for it. Found no comfort, as other people did, in the smell of last year's rotted leaves emerging. Why was he suddenly on the verge of tears at the thought of not seeing it again?” (An incident at Burnt Creek on the occasion of a homecoming #2)
“The pain ... had a tendency to make him feel the full measure of every moment.” (An incident at Burnt Creek on the occasion of a homecoming #1)