Edge of Somewhere

by Kris Farmen

It was midmorning and already hot when the shark grabbed Charlie Deacon. Surfing off the wild coast of Western Australia, Charlie's life is irrevocably transformed by the trauma of almost being eaten alive. The experience marks him, both across his body with ridges of scar tissue and across his soul with fits of anger and confusion he can't seem to outrun as he drifts back and forth across Australia on his perpetual hunt for waves. Then a chance encounter at a surf hostel leads him to Amy Glanton, struggling actress and itinerant surfer from his home ground who has been working overtime to stay ahead of her own haunted past. Their love affair sprawls across the southern hemisphere as they lose themselves in the hunt for remote waves that, they hope, can take them back to themselves.

136 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

About the author

I'm what is sometimes referred to as a critically acclaimed author, which is to say critics have on occasion said nice things about my books. I write both contemporary fiction and historical fiction, often with a fabulist twist, but for me there's not a lot of daylight between the past and the present. As far back as I can remember I’ve been obsessed with history, but for me it’s just the aggregate of every human life that has come and gone upon the earth. Each one of those lives is a story, and history keeps happening all around us, just as it always has. As William Faulkner famously said, the past is never dead. It's not even past.

My books generally involve Alaska and the circumpolar North, but that isn’t a hard and fast rule. In fact, I don't really write books about Alaska, I write books about people. It just so happens that most of those people either live in Alaska or are somehow connected to the Far North. I’ve used fiction as a tool to explore the “shadow society” of people of color in Alaska’s gold rush past, the world of mixed-race Russian and Native residents of Alaska during its time as a Russian colony, and the dismal history of Native boarding schools. I’ve also examined the effects of post-traumatic stress syndrome and how it changes the lives of people afflicted by it.

I live in Fairbanks, Alaska with my wife, daughter, and rescue dog. When I’m not writing, reading, or editing, I’m usually in the woods, foraging for food or just rambling around looking at birds and flowers. I’m also a surfer, though these days I really have to work and plan to get my water time. My website www.krisfarmen.com has more information about my books and my upcoming projects.