In this week's edition of Endnotes, we take a look at Jess Walter's So Far Gone, a rollicking and heartrending adventure. In its review, PW says "This captivates."

Here's how the book came together:

Jess Walter

Author

“So Far Gone came from a question I kept asking over the last few years of what to do with all this dread: political, social, ecological, existential dread. Could a person simply run away from it, throw his smart phone out a car window, and just go? That urge came over me like a fever in 2023 and 2024, so I wrote feverishly over that period. This is my eighth novel, but it’s only the second time a book has come to me that way.”

Warren Frazier

Agent, John Hawkins & Associates

“Jess is the sort of writer who typically has a few novels going at once. Occasionally he shares parts of them with me, but he wisely does the opposite of whatever I advise. When he sent me the first few chapters of So Far Gone, I said, ‘Please listen to me just once and finish this one next.’ Thankfully, for once, he did.”

Millicent Bennett

Executive Editor, Harper

“It will be no surprise that Jess needs very little editing. On the line level, his prose is beautiful, crisp, and evocative, as befits a former journalist. Narratively and structurally, So Far Gone felt fully realized from the first draft that crossed my desk; I had only small suggestions in the final chapters to draw out certain character arcs.”

Milan Bozic

Senior Art Director, Harper

“We went through about 15 versions before arriving at the final cover. The earliest concepts were truly out there. By the second round, we’d homed in on the layout and art. What we were missing was that perfect note of irony. It took another five iterations to find it, when Olivia, our brilliant in-house designer and illustrator, introduced the gloriously furious little raccoon. That’s when everything clicked.”