Makeshift: A Novel

by Peter Rock

“Lyrical and poignant, Makeshift proves a powerful antidote to the modern world. This must-read novel lures the reader in, not unlike the coastal wrecks that line the island.” —Adam Johnson, author of The Wayfinder

Abandoned on a remote island known as Makeshift, three sisters—Ari, Heiko, and CeCe—believe they’re the last humans on Earth.

These three, left alone after a band of foreigners slaughtered their entire community, must learn to fend for themselves. They fish and forage in the shallow waters of their protected cove, salvage useful treasures from the rusting hulks of ships that ran aground on its offshore reefs, and entertain themselves with half-remembered songs and tales from their time before.

But when they stray beyond the island into a wider, broken world, they find that life may not be as they believed. And upon their return to the island, they face further revelations that strain their bonds, hint that secrets may be everywhere, and affirm their need for one another in the face of a perilous future. Makeshift is a singular novel of hope and survival set on a small rock-bound island in the coastal Pacific Northwest, and a testament to devotion and allegiance rendered with the haunting grace of Rock’s precision prose.

Kindle Edition

Expected publication August 25, 2026

About the author

Peter Rock was born and raised in Salt Lake City. His most recent novel, Passersthrough, involves a murder house, a fax machine, communications between the living and the dead, and a mountain lake that moves from place to place. He is also the author of the novels The Night Swimmers, SPELLS, Klickitat, The Shelter Cycle, My Abandonment, The Bewildered, The Ambidextrist, Carnival Wolves and This Is the Place, as well as a story collection, The Unsettling. Rock attended Deep Springs College, received a BA in English from Yale University, and held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. He has taught fiction at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Deep Springs College, and in the MFA program at San Francisco State University. His stories and freelance writing have both appeared and been anthologized widely, and his books published in various countries and languages. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and an Alex Award, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, he currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where he is a Professor in the English Department of Reed College. Leave No Trace, the film adaptation of My Abandonment, directed by Debra Granik, premiered at Sundance and Cannes and was released to critical acclaim in 2018. His eleventh work of fiction, Passersthrough, will be published in early 2022.

Reviews

[Amy Verkruissen · Rating 5 out of 5]

With little information to go on, you find yourself on an island inhabited only by three sisters. You do know that "foreigners" killed all the parents, and why they were all there but as far as what has happened to the world beyond the island you know very little.

CeCe, the eldest is in charge of her two sisters, Ari and Heiko, and there is never a thought of questioning or arguing her decisions. CeCe frequently leaves them on their own to go on a "foray" on which she is sometimes gone for many days. Often coming back with supplies but never saying where she's been. Ari and Heiko know how to survive on their own, catching fish or crabs from the shipwrecks that surround the island.

When CeCe comes back from a long foray she has her sisters clean and dress in good clothes. CeCe is going to take them on a foray to a place very different from their home.

Overall I really enjoyed the story. It definitely leaves you wondering about what happened to the outside world. You get the idea that it is in the future from what Ari sees one day through his binoculars at a far off ship that is passing. But beyond that there is very little explanation. Though for this story, I didn't feel that I missed out by not knowing, but I definitely finished with a few questions.

Overall a unique and engaging story about family, isolation, and what that can mean when choosing how to live your life. I definitely recommend it.

Special thanks to Edelweiss and Soft Skull Press for the Advance Readers Copy.

[The Speculative Shelf · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hollowed-out world is brought to life with ethereal prose and evocative imagery. Experiencing the isolated island of Makeshift through Ari’s naive and limited understanding of the wider world heightens the sense of mystery surrounding the setting.

While I was taken with the atmosphere and worldbuilding, the story itself feels somewhat incomplete or unfinished. Major events occur, but there isn’t always a corresponding narrative payoff. Even so, Rock’s singular style kept me enthralled from chapter to chapter.

My thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

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