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The Gatepost
Not yet published
Expected 26 May 26From the author of The Afterlife Project: One woman’s quest to find her vanished father pushes her beyond the boundaries of space, time, and the human mind.
Esme Weatherhead was twelve years old when her father, an amateur scientist and the author of a best-selling book on Mesoamerican shamanism, walked up into the forest on their rural Vermont property and never came back. Twenty years later she quits her job in San Francisco, gets divorced, and moves back to Vermont with the goal of writing a book about her father’s life and disappearance.
In the course of her research, Esme finds an old field journal referencing a cave on the property she hadn’t known about, a series of experiments involving high doses of psilocybin mushrooms, and a series of strangely vivid hallucinations. After searching unsuccessfully for the cave, she hires Lucas St. Pierre, a local geologist, to help her find it. As they try to unravel the truth of her father’s disappearance, Esme and Lucas confront hidden forces that will test their sanity and put their lives at risk, leading to new insights about love, death, and the hidden secrets of life on earth.
Perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Emily St John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, and Richard Powers’ Bewilderment, Tim Weed’s The Gatepost blends modern science and ancient cosmology to take readers on a journey offering hallucinatory glimpses into worlds beyond our own.
Esme Weatherhead was twelve years old when her father, an amateur scientist and the author of a best-selling book on Mesoamerican shamanism, walked up into the forest on their rural Vermont property and never came back. Twenty years later she quits her job in San Francisco, gets divorced, and moves back to Vermont with the goal of writing a book about her father’s life and disappearance.
In the course of her research, Esme finds an old field journal referencing a cave on the property she hadn’t known about, a series of experiments involving high doses of psilocybin mushrooms, and a series of strangely vivid hallucinations. After searching unsuccessfully for the cave, she hires Lucas St. Pierre, a local geologist, to help her find it. As they try to unravel the truth of her father’s disappearance, Esme and Lucas confront hidden forces that will test their sanity and put their lives at risk, leading to new insights about love, death, and the hidden secrets of life on earth.
Perfect for fans of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi, Emily St John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility, and Richard Powers’ Bewilderment, Tim Weed’s The Gatepost blends modern science and ancient cosmology to take readers on a journey offering hallucinatory glimpses into worlds beyond our own.
264 pages, Paperback
Expected publication May 26, 2026
1 person is currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Tim Weed
5 books199 followers Tim Weed is the author of four books of fiction. His recent novel, The Afterlife Project, was a best books of 2025 pick from Library Journal and the Toronto Star. He’s won multiple Writer’s Digest Annual Fiction Awards and his work has been shortlisted for the Eric Hoffer Book Award, the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, the Prism Prize for Climate Literature, the Fish International Short Story Award, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for a Novel-in-Progress, the New Rivers Many Voices Project, and many others. Tim's essays and articles have appeared in Writers Digest, Literary Hub, The Revelator, The Millions, The Writer’s Chronicle, Talking Points Memo, The Good Men Project, and elsewhere.
Read more at the author's official website.
Read more at the author's official website.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Tim Weed's latest novel explores the role of psychedelic experiences in ancient indigenous ritual, weaving a convincing, exciting narrative with well-researched cultural references. The Gatepost's lyrical descriptions of natural environments are even richer than those in the author's previous works, and he returns again, with great success, to the principles of quantum mechanics, perfectly integrating what might otherwise be obtuse concepts seamlessly into the story. The reader's mind swims with the possibilities implied by the spooky-action science, even to the point of imagining that the fictional scenario they're reading might exist in some meta-reality.
Informative without being dry, insightful without being preachy, Weed's prose is polished and powerful here, with echoes of Michael Pollan, Crouch's Recursion and the themes of Ancient Apocalypse. For anyone who has peered at their own reflection and wondered what might happen if they reached out and through to the other side, this sci-fi thriller is the transcendent adventure you've been searching for.
Hold on tight, prepare yourself for the journey that begins at The Gatepost.
A huge thank you to NetGalley and Podium Publishing for the ARC.
Informative without being dry, insightful without being preachy, Weed's prose is polished and powerful here, with echoes of Michael Pollan, Crouch's Recursion and the themes of Ancient Apocalypse. For anyone who has peered at their own reflection and wondered what might happen if they reached out and through to the other side, this sci-fi thriller is the transcendent adventure you've been searching for.
Hold on tight, prepare yourself for the journey that begins at The Gatepost.
A huge thank you to NetGalley and Podium Publishing for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Another great book from this author. Very readable with well developed characters. Interesting dive into Mesoamerican archaeology and strange goings on. Enjoyed afterlife project slightly more probably with my interests leaning to dystopian worlds. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews