Etna
A Novel
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Aug 4, 2026
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, TIME, and LITHUB
A BEST BOOK OF THE SUMMER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE BOSTON GLOBE, LITHUB, and SCARY MOMMY
Beloved author and winner of The Story Prize, Paul Yoon, is back with the unforgettable story of a working dog, Etna, who, after a devastating war, embarks on an odyssey in the hopes of returning home.
Set in a fictional country in the present day, this is a story told through the eyes of an ex-military dog, Etna. After surviving years of a devastating war, Etna decides one night to leave the men he has fought alongside for years and return home—to the place where he was taken from when he was young, in the thin but persistent hope that if a home exists for him, it might be there.
Thus begins an exhilarating odyssey told through the eyes of a dog as he traverses across ruined landscapes and fights to survive in a world that, even in peacetime, proves to be just as precarious. Along the way, he encounters other animals and humans who are attempting to figure out how to start again. What makes a life when there is no home to go back to? How do we begin to trust each other again after such profound loss?
This is a novel about the power of an idea, about never giving up, and ultimately a novel about finding hope in the most dire of times.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A combat-trained dog sets out for home after a war in this magnificent novel from Yoon (The Hive and the Honey). The story takes place in an unnamed mountainous country in an alternate present. It begins when the narrator, a shepherd mix raised happily on a coastal farm, is conscripted by a woman named Soojin, who can converse with dogs by reading their thoughts, and trained to sniff out land mines and disarm enemy soldiers for an American unit aiding their country's war effort. The war ends a quarter of the way through the novel, with the dog's country victorious but destroyed. Now almost five years old and fierce at 67 pounds, the dog wonders if, like the traumatized soldiers he fought alongside, he's been forever changed by the horrors of combat. Hoping to recover his sense of self, he travels the country, losing track of the distance and time and avoiding bloodthirsty survivors who evoke those in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Eventually, he's aided by a good-hearted man named Hong, who, with his partner, an unnamed doctor, make dangerous supply runs to those attempting to rebuild. Not only does Yoon pull off a fresh take on well-worn Homeric themes and convincingly capture a dog's perspective, but he offers subtle and resonant insights on the nature of faith, which might not always provide salvation but can be enough to keep people (and dogs) going. The author has outdone himself.
