A New York Times Editor’s Choice

Best Fiction of 2019, True West Magazine

Finalist, 2019 High Plains Book Award

Simpson Family Literary Project Longlist

Chautauqua Prize Longlist

Willa Literary Award Finalist

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“Tatjana Soli’s The Removes breathes new life into a story I thought I already knew. She finds fresh blood in the vexed, compelling romance between Custer and his wife Libbie, pathos in the plight of captives both before and after “rescue,” and surprising sympathy for the man who wanted—fatally too much—to be a hero.”
—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising

“Epic, enthralling… With visceral, vibrant language, Soli paints a stark portrait of the violence, hardship, and struggles that characterized the American West.”
— Booklist, Starred Review

"Soli unleashes a thrilling novel set in the violent Wild West . . . The clash of cultures is Soli's grand theme, and here she drives home her message that the winners are no more worthy than the losers, and that "not even brotherhood was enough to safeguard people who had what others coveted."
―Publishers Weekly

"... vividly evokes the genocidal violence visited on Native Americans."
—The New Yorker

"This is a western, but a modern one—beautifully detailed and carefully researched, completely free of the questionable mythologies that sometimes characterize the genre. A vivid, sometimes harrowing, but always gripping read."
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award

"The Removes tells a tale of impeccable verisimilitude that is at once a tightly interwoven narrative and a kaleidoscopic picture of the Indian Wars of the American West, from which readers will emerge with a keen appreciation of this tragic American epoch."
— Peter Cozzens, author of The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

"As beautiful a novel as I’ve read in some time... Soli’s writing is spare, lyrical, haunting and heartbreaking, and countless images from this book will stay with me forever: the harsh majesty of the plains, the “sheer animal joy” of horses running into battle, and the bravado of Custer’s long, meandering march to his ruin."
— Elizabeth McKenzie, Author of National Book Award long-listed The Portable Veblen

“A stunning, vivid portrayal of captivity and freedom, and wars waged on the landscapes and peoples of the American frontier. Soli’s writing is so visceral and evocative one feels transported to that moment when history is forged…intimate and sweeping, unflinching and compassionate…a magnificent read.”
—Vaddey Ratner, PEN/Hemingway Finalist, Author of In the Shadow of the Banyan

“Soli braids a beautiful and harrowing tale of Custer, his wife, and a fifteen-year-old girl held captive out on the western plains. Intimate and panoramic all at once, this is a novel of transformation and self-reliance, a book that powerfully questions what we know of women on the American frontier.”
—Dominic Smith, author of The Last Painting of Sara de Vos

"Tatjana Soli weaves a stark western landscape, a national tragedy, and intimate portrayals of two pioneer women into a poignant and powerful tapestry of identity and belonging that will break your heart. I absolutely loved The Removes."
—Meg Waite Clayton, Langum Prize-honored author of The Race for Paris