This Ghost Town Hides Century-Spanning Secrets

In “Sunrise,” Téa Obreht mashes up Western gothic, murder mystery and survival saga.

By Julia Scheeres

SUNRISE, by Téa Obreht

Thousands of ghost towns slowly rot across the American West, each a silent guardian of the epic human dramas they once contained. Squint hard enough, though, and you can still make out their best-known residents: the grizzled prospectors, saucy balcony girls, rapacious outlaws and thin-lipped lawmen.

Long after the last boom town went bust, such frontier archetypes have continued to populate our collective Wild West fantasies, immortalized in dime novels, television westerns and package tours with re-enactors.

The Old West also takes center stage in Téa Obreht’s masterful fourth novel, “Sunrise.” As in her best-selling debut, “The Tiger’s Wife,” Obreht’s latest volume weaves together fact and folklore. Read the full review at the New York Times.