The Gatepost: A Novel

by Tim Weed

From the author of The Afterlife 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 bestselling book on Mesoamerican shamanism, walked into the forest on their rural Vermont property and never came back. Twenty years later, she quit her job in San Francisco, got divorced, and moved back home with the goal of writing a book about her father’s life and sudden vanishing.

In the course of her research, Esme uncovers an old field journal that describes a cave on the property she hadn’t known about, 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.

Now, as they work to unravel the mystery of her father’s disappearance, Esme and Lucas must confront hidden forces that will test their sanity and put their safety at risk, ultimately 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’s 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.

Praise for Tim Weed’s The Afterlife Project

“Smart, achingly beautiful, and (yes) a gripping novel of climate cataclysm with a cast of characters I cared about deeply.” ―Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Flight Attendant

“A super-smart, super-fun page-turner about a scientist trying to survive alone on Earth in the deep future―and the love of his life trying to travel through time to find him. I can’t think of a single page that didn’t make me pause to admire a sentence, an image, or a particularly fascinating idea. I loved this book.” ―Angie Kim, New York Times–bestselling author of Happiness Falls

“The Afterlife Project isn’t just a story about the end of the world as we know it―it’s an exploration of beauty, and love, and hope in the darkness. If you were a fan of Cloud Atlas, you won’t want to miss this one.” ―Janelle Brown, New York Times–bestselling author of What Kind of Paradise

“This beautiful and heartbreaking book reminds us of what we have, and what we stand to lose. Unforgettable.” ―Danielle Trussoni, New York Times–bestselling author of The Puzzle Master

“Riveting and wrenching and suffused with beauty.” ―Peter Heller, bestselling author of The Dog Stars

“Weed is a fabulous storyteller working at the top of his game. I predict this novel will become a classic.” —Joseph Monninger, author of The World As We Know It

“It’s a relatively simple idea, but Tim Weed makes it into something special with first-rate nature writing and a story that underlines how connected we all are to our human and physical environmen

Kindle Edition

Expected publication May 26, 2026

About the author

Tim Weed's new novel, The Afterlife Project, a finalist for the Prism Prize in Climate Fiction, received a starred review from Library Journal and was a Middlebury Magazine editor’s pick and a New Scientist best new science fiction book of the month. His first novel, Will Poole's Island, was named one of Bank Street College of Education’s Best Books of the Year, and his short fiction collection, A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, made the Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize Shortlist and was a finalist in the short story category for the American Fiction Awards and the International Book Awards.

Tim is a two-time winner of the Writer’s Digest Annual Fiction Awards and has been shortlisted for the Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction, 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. His essays and articles have appeared in Writers Digest, Literary Hub, The Millions, The Writer’s Chronicle, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere.

Tim serves on the core faculty of the Newport MFA in Creative Writing and is the co-founder of the Cuba Writers Program. A former featured expert for National Geographic Expeditions, he spent the first part of his career directing international educational programs throughout Latin America and in Spain, Portugal, Australia, Iceland, and other locations around the globe. He holds a BA in Spanish from Middlebury, a master’s in international affairs from the University of California, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College.

Dividing his time between southern Vermont and Nantucket, Tim is a member of the Vermont Humanities Council Speakers’ Bureau and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association. He occasionally leads international travel programs and appears at writing conferences and other events in the U.S. and abroad.
Read more at the author's official website.