Run Me to Earth

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From award-winning author Paul Yoon comes a beautiful, aching novel about three kids orphaned in 1960s Laosand how their destinies are entwined across decades, anointed by Hernan Diaz as, one of those rare novels that stays with us to become a standard with which we measure other books.

Alisak, Prany, and Noithree orphans united by devastating lossmust do what is necessary to survive the perilous landscape of 1960s Laos. When they take shelter in a bombed out field hospital, they meet Vang, a doctor dedicated to helping the wounded at all costs. Soon the teens are serving as motorcycle couriers, delicately navigating their bikes across the fields filled with unexploded bombs, beneath the indiscriminate barrage from the sky.

In a world where the landscape and the roads have turned into an ocean of bombs, we follow their grueling days of rescuing civilians and searching for medical supplies, until Vang secures their evacuation on the last helicopters leaving the country. Its a move with irrevocable consequencesand sets them on disparate and treacherous paths across the world.

Spanning decades and magically weaving together storylines laced with beauty and cruelty, Paul Yoon crafts a gorgeous story that is a breathtaking historical feat and a fierce study of the powers of hope, perseverance, and grace.

If you truly believe in the transformative power of literature then you must read this book.Run Me to Earthis a genuine masterpiece; fierce, tender, wise, earth-shattering, pulsating with love and hope.MIRIAM TOEWS, author ofWomen Talking

WithRun Me to Earth, Paul Yoon proves, yet again, that he is a master at finding depth of emotion in formal restraint and discovering the timeless core in the most urgent issues of our day. This is one of those rare novels that stays with us to become, over the years, a standard with which we measure other books.HERNAN DIAZ, author ofIn the Distance,finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Reviews

Haunting . . .Run Me to Earth is a beautiful, understated novel which jumps backwards and forwards in time and perspective. Told by a range of narrators, some of whom stand at a slight angle to the main characters, it has a fractured, abstracted feel which mirrors the dissociation caused by early trauma . . .His writing may be restrained, but it is not lacking in lyricism or insight * The Big Issue *
Yoons style is spare and subtle; some of his most powerful descriptions are of absences . . . There is no melodrama here, despite the intensity of the trauma . . . a humane corrective to those murderous abstractions * Times Literary Supplement *
'Richly layered . . . Throughout the novel, beauty and violence coexist in a universe that seems by turns cruel and wondrous. . . .Yoon has stitched an intense meditation on the devastating nature of war and displacement' * New York Times Book Review *
'Spellbinding . . . With his panoramic vision of the displacements of war, Yoon reminds us of the people never considered or accounted for in the halls of power' * The Washington Post *
'Yoons greatest skill lies in crafting subtle moments that underline the strange and specific sadness inherent to trauma . . . As children around the world continue to grow up surrounded by violence and war, authors like Yoon seek to understand how experiencing those horrors shapes the adults they eventually become. And in Run Me to Earth, those horrors are scattered like unexploded bombs, waiting to go off at any time' * Time magazine *
'If you truly believe in the transformative power of literature then you must read this book. Run Me to Earth is a genuine masterpiece: fierce, tender, wise, earth-shattering, pulsating with love and hope' -- Miriam Toews, author of Women Talking
'With Run Me to Earth, Paul Yoon proves, yet again, that he is a master at finding depth of emotion in formal restraint and discovering the timeless core in the most urgent issues of our day. This is one of those rare novels that stays with us to become, over the years, a standard with which we measure other books' -- Hernan Diaz, author of In the Distance, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
'[A] gorgeous book about the bonds of friendship and the ruptures of war. Even more significantly, in telling the stories of a trio of Laotian teens, it inverts and reorients the American war story. . . Yoon is a master of subtle storytelling often leaving powerful emotions unexpressed, violent acts undetailed' * Los Angeles Times *
'Engrossing and luminous . . . Yoon crafts an exceptionally human and poignant story' * Newsweek *
'This story of three Laotian orphans making their way through their war-torn world in the 1960s asks important questions about what it means to feel safe, and to call a place home' * Vogue *
'Yoon again exemplifies his unparalleled ability to create a quietly spectacular narrative that reveals the unfathomable worst and unwavering best of humanity; the result here provides mesmerizing gratification' * Booklist *
'In another life, Yoon (The Mountain, 2017, etc.) might have been a sculptor, carving the excess off his creations until theyre perfect. In this decades-spanning examination of the survival of three orphans with the bad luck to have been born into the ruins of a battlefield, hes stretching his abilities while still writing with deliberate, almost vigilant care . . . Yoons imaginative prose and affection for his characters make the story larger than a look at the ways people survive. . . Another masterpiece in miniature about the unpredictable directions a life can take' * Kirkus Reviews *
'Yoon displays uncanny range, imagination, and originality' * The Millions *
'[A] sparely written gem . . . Yoon masterfully weaves their divergent story lines, unveiling the different trajectories of their lives. . . . [A] finely wrought tale about courage and endurance' * Publishers Weekly *

Author Bio

Paul Yoon is the author of four previous works of fiction: Once the Shore, which was a New York Times Notable Book; Snow Hunters, which won the Young Lions Fiction Award; The Mountain, which was an NPR Best Book of the Year; and Run Me to Earth, which wasone of Timemagazines Must-Read Books of 2020 and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. A recipient of aGuggenheim Fellowship, he lives in the Hudson Valley, NewYork.