“Cast Away is a confluence of two stories that travel through generations, across borders and cultural divides, and to the core of what it means to be family. Kase Johnstun navigates the complicated intersection of a broken immigration system and the ever-shifting American dream with a sharp wit and deep historical awareness that makes Cast Away impossible to put down. It’s the kind of story that takes you to places and events you may have heard of before and reveals them in a totally new light. Each chapter reads like a synonym for bravery. Cast Away is a continual feast for the senses and exploration of the heart.”
—PATRICK RAMSAY, Happy Magpie Book & Quill owner
Description:
Written with an abundance of humor and grace, Cast Away is a dual narrative that shines a brilliant light on a quirky and wonderful family as they experience displacement.
What would you do for your shot at the American Dream? Veronica Chavez and her great nephew Chuy immigrate from Mexico to the US, their journeys seventy years apart, each willing to do whatever it takes to build the life of their dreams. In 1922, Veronica’s romantic expectations are crushed by the dangers of living alone in a foreign country. Young and determined, she finds community in Utah’s desert railroad towns. Decades later, Chuy comes with his family to Salt Lake City, but his parents are soon sent back to Mexico. Out of place but together, Chuy and Veronica manage to connect across generations—hatching a plan to finally win it big on reality TV.
"An intergenerational story that interrogates and celebrates the American dream. The novel alternates between Chuy’s coming-of-age in the 1990s and Veronica’s in the 1920s with humor and warmth. The two timelines, the protagonists of different genders, and Johnstun’s attention to the details of Utah’s unique landscape and milieu make the novel feel greater than the sum of its parts."
—KIRKUS
“Cast Away explores our ideals of a better life, be they on the far side of a TV screen or a border, and the people and places sacrificed to get there. Weaving together gems of western history, of Mexican family life, and of love across generations, Kase Johnstun has written a delectable, humorous, heartwarming read not to be missed.”
—HEATHER MATEUS SAPPENFIELD, Reading the West Award-winning author of The River Between Hearts
"Kase Johnstun's work carries much to be admired, but this, perhaps, is the most enduring aspect of its beauty: His love—absolute, complete, and unflinching—for the characters he writes, even as they endure hardship and horror on their way to something greater. He never withholds that love, and it imbues the individual characters' journeys and the larger mosaic of not just their lives but also the lives of those to whom they are connected. So it holds for Veronica and Chuy and their multigenerational connection in Cast Away, another fine novel from an author whose imagination and unflagging empathy bring about stories that stick to the ribs like the best meals."
—CRAIG LANCASTER, two-time High Plains Book Award-winning novelist
