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Yellow Pine
Not yet published
Expected 21 Jul 26In the latest novel from “our most significant rising writer of the American West” (Vulture), an unfettered heroine searches for a new way to love, and live, in a deeply uncertain world
The first time Rose fell for Miles, she was a college kid, all too eager to be swept into his sexy orbit; little wonder the relationship crashed and burned. When Miles comes back into her life two decades later, he finds a different Rose. Not only has she moved back to her beloved desert, on a homestead she’s dubbed Nothingness Flats, but she’s chosen to live “on the other side of the portal,” with an intentionality that’s brought her hard-won peace and freedom. She’s navigating single parenthood, and she’s found a community out at Yellow Pine, where a group of spirited misfits have mounted a stand against the corporatization of solar power. Is it worth jeopardizing all this for another chance with Miles? And yet the universe seems to be beckoning her, not only back to him but possibly toward another child. What shape might her future take, on this side of the portal?
As furious, funny, searching, and searingly original as ever, in Yellow Pine Watkins blazes a trail toward a radically reimagined vision of a good life in a precarious age.
The first time Rose fell for Miles, she was a college kid, all too eager to be swept into his sexy orbit; little wonder the relationship crashed and burned. When Miles comes back into her life two decades later, he finds a different Rose. Not only has she moved back to her beloved desert, on a homestead she’s dubbed Nothingness Flats, but she’s chosen to live “on the other side of the portal,” with an intentionality that’s brought her hard-won peace and freedom. She’s navigating single parenthood, and she’s found a community out at Yellow Pine, where a group of spirited misfits have mounted a stand against the corporatization of solar power. Is it worth jeopardizing all this for another chance with Miles? And yet the universe seems to be beckoning her, not only back to him but possibly toward another child. What shape might her future take, on this side of the portal?
As furious, funny, searching, and searingly original as ever, in Yellow Pine Watkins blazes a trail toward a radically reimagined vision of a good life in a precarious age.
256 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication July 21, 2026
About the author
Claire Vaye Watkins
21 books687 followersClaire Vaye Watkins was born in Bishop, California in 1984. She was raised in the Mojave Desert, first in Tecopa, California and then across the state line in Pahrump, Nevada. A graduate of the University of Nevada Reno, Claire earned her MFA from the Ohio State University, where she was a Presidential Fellow. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta, One Story, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, Best of the West 2011, New Stories from the Southwest 2013, the New York Times and elsewhere. Claire has received fellowships from the Writers’ Conferences at Sewanee and Bread Loaf.
Her collection of short stories, Battleborn (Riverhead Books), won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Battleborn was named a best book of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, and NPR.org. In 2012, Claire was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.”
Currently a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University, Claire is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.
Her collection of short stories, Battleborn (Riverhead Books), won the Story Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. A finalist for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, Battleborn was named a best book of 2012 by the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, Time Out New York, Flavorwire, and NPR.org. In 2012, Claire was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35.”
Currently a visiting assistant professor at Princeton University, Claire is also the co-director, with Derek Palacio, of the Mojave School, a free creative writing workshop for teenagers in rural Nevada.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 4, 2026
Thank you god for making me an Arizonan 🤸🤸🤸🤸🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈
Did Not Finish
June 17, 2026I stopped reading this one around page 30. I could not get into it. All the talk about portals and what side of them people are on just wasn’t for me.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Here is the synopsis of Yellow Pine in a nutshell. Rose is a mess. But don't feel sorry for Rose, because Rose looooves being a mess. She fetishizes it. Well, this is not exactly true, as Rose doesn't love anything. Or anyone. It would be fair to say that Rose doesn't even *like* anything or anyone either. Rose has a lot of rage and hatred, and even though she doesn't technically ever experience joy, if she did, it would be derived solely from making others miserable. To say Rose is "evil" would not only be derivative, it would be an understatement. Presumably there are evil people in the world who don't realize how debauched they are and are deserving of some compassion. But not so our Rose. Rose delights in being unkind, mean, and critical. She revels in destroying the tiniest bit of mirth in a room. When finding out that her father would have nothing to do with her, my first thought was "lucky bastard". When I found out that she did not get primary custody of her daughter, my first thought was, "Thank heavens. Maybe now Juniper will have a fighting chance in this (fictional) world." Even Miles, Rose's on again, off again, lover seems to regard her as "any ol' port in the storm". I kept shouting at Miles, "Stop being a masochist!! There are other ports! There are other storms! She is an open, festering wound! Steer clear!" The few people who reluctantly tolerate Rose in small doses, seem to do so out of fear. After all, no one wants to poke the rabid dog. My final thought, as I read the last page, was, "I am so glad that this is fiction, because heaven help us if there are real people like this in the world." The only readers to whom I would recommend this book would be people with serious, unresolved anger issues. Because ultimately you'd come away with, "Hey, I'm not that bad after all." **I received this ARC for free but all opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
3.5
I want to start by saying that I adore Claire Vaye Watkins, and Yellow Pine was one of my most anticipated reads of 2026.
I love the way Watkins wrangles language; she lassos words from the desert lexicon and the language of the heart and marries them in a completely unique and idiosyncratic way. Yellow Pine shines when Vaye Watkins writes about the California/Nevada desert setting and the intense codependency and love of her main character, Rose.
Yellow Pine is a novel in which Rose, a single mother who has returned to the desert of her youth, grapples with both the reemergence of a lover from her past and the destruction of nature and the nature of destruction and rebirth. She is surrounded by a motley cast of characters, and a large chunk of the book is told in quippy, loose cannon dialogue. I realized I was skipping over whole swaths of these frantic rants as I found them to be both uninteresting and mildly esoteric.
I finished Yellow Pine feeling that the balance in the novel was way out of whack, and maybe that's the point... That the balance between love and friendship set in stark contrast against the destruction of the natural world and an uncertain future is bound to be uneven and forever unsettled. Which I get on a cerebral level, but was left feeling that the novel, as it careens between messy character development and a discourse of agitated chaos, just didn't land emotionally.
I want to start by saying that I adore Claire Vaye Watkins, and Yellow Pine was one of my most anticipated reads of 2026.
I love the way Watkins wrangles language; she lassos words from the desert lexicon and the language of the heart and marries them in a completely unique and idiosyncratic way. Yellow Pine shines when Vaye Watkins writes about the California/Nevada desert setting and the intense codependency and love of her main character, Rose.
Yellow Pine is a novel in which Rose, a single mother who has returned to the desert of her youth, grapples with both the reemergence of a lover from her past and the destruction of nature and the nature of destruction and rebirth. She is surrounded by a motley cast of characters, and a large chunk of the book is told in quippy, loose cannon dialogue. I realized I was skipping over whole swaths of these frantic rants as I found them to be both uninteresting and mildly esoteric.
I finished Yellow Pine feeling that the balance in the novel was way out of whack, and maybe that's the point... That the balance between love and friendship set in stark contrast against the destruction of the natural world and an uncertain future is bound to be uneven and forever unsettled. Which I get on a cerebral level, but was left feeling that the novel, as it careens between messy character development and a discourse of agitated chaos, just didn't land emotionally.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Dammmnnn this book hit me like a ton of bricks. I have been a fan of all of Claire Vaye Watkins' books, but she is at her best with her latest YELLOW PINE. What starts out as a seemingly straightforward book about the climate apocalypse and people living off the grid in CA/NV, it slowly turns into a treatise on being a parent in these times and what it means to spark the light of life in a world that is continuously trying to extinguish it.
Rose is a single mother and activist, living in a homestead in the Mojave Desert and desperately missing her daughter June who lives on the east coast, only visiting during school breaks. While at her loneliest, she reconnects with Miles after two decades apart, her college boyfriend who she has never stopped thinking about. He is a free spirit, hard to pin down but still means the world to Rose, who wants to have him to herself.
This book is a love story, a warning, and a prayer to the earth and to the children who will soon inherit it. Plus, it takes place and gives an incredible history of the town of Truckee and the surrounding Lake Tahoe area, a place I have spent a lot of time in and love dearly. I will hold this book close to my heart for a long, long time.
Rose is a single mother and activist, living in a homestead in the Mojave Desert and desperately missing her daughter June who lives on the east coast, only visiting during school breaks. While at her loneliest, she reconnects with Miles after two decades apart, her college boyfriend who she has never stopped thinking about. He is a free spirit, hard to pin down but still means the world to Rose, who wants to have him to herself.
This book is a love story, a warning, and a prayer to the earth and to the children who will soon inherit it. Plus, it takes place and gives an incredible history of the town of Truckee and the surrounding Lake Tahoe area, a place I have spent a lot of time in and love dearly. I will hold this book close to my heart for a long, long time.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
I was really looking forward to this novel, but I have to admit that the first part was a bit of a struggle. Vaye Watkins was trying so hard to educate the reader, that it felt preachy at times. Still, once it got going I loved it. 'Yellow Pine' really grows on you. Vaye Watkins' play with words is verbose, original, and occasionally full of rage, and her love for the landscape is omnipresent.
A great activist book about full of love and friendship!
Thank you Riverhead and Edelweiss for the ARC
A great activist book about full of love and friendship!
Thank you Riverhead and Edelweiss for the ARC
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you @NetGalley and @SimonandSchuster for the advance ebook.
I really enjoy Watkins writing especially when she is writing about climate and ecology and the effects it has on our planet. She incorporates those thoughts seamlessly in her writings. I had some lapses in concentration reading this book, so it took longer to read than some of her other books. Still an enjoyable read overall.
I really enjoy Watkins writing especially when she is writing about climate and ecology and the effects it has on our planet. She incorporates those thoughts seamlessly in her writings. I had some lapses in concentration reading this book, so it took longer to read than some of her other books. Still an enjoyable read overall.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
People are complicated and Rose, the protagonist, is complex. Claire Vaye Watkins is one of the most interesting writers whose sentences have verve. I lived our interview for Writers in Writing that will air in July when the book pubs. Talking with her reminds me why I continue to do the show after more than two decades.
Review of advance copy received from Goodreads Giveaways
I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway. The first few chapters kept my interest and after that it faded and became a struggle to read. After 75 pages I called it quits. Thank you for sharing this book with me
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews