Sunrise by Téa Obreht

Published by Random House on August 11, 2026

History belongs to those who write it. That familiar aphorism brings focus to the story Téa Obreht tells in Sunrise. The characters discover that history is subject to interpretation and constant revision, even by those who lived it. And the reader will discover that the line between history and fiction can be indiscernibly thin. 

Sunrise tells three stories, one set in the present, one in the recent past, and one in a past more distant. The story in the present belongs to a young woman named Nina Terzić. Nina’s story is structured around the legend of Anton Vargas. His story is presented from varying perspectives — none authoritative — as the story evolves.

The novel begins in the present with a plane crash. Nina is visiting Wyoming with her boyfriend Ben. Nina stays with Ben despite his abusive conduct, notwithstanding her mother’s warning that he will eventually kill her.

Ben is flying an old Cessna that develops engine trouble. Ben pushes Nina out of the plane and she splashes into a cold Wyoming lake before swimming to shore. Nina assumes Ben jumped out after he pushed her. When Ben does not appear, Nina explores her surroundings and stumbles upon a ghost town. Without cellphone coverage she cannot ask for help and without electricity she cannot keep her phone charged. Nearby streams give her a source of fresh water. She has some trail mix and ten energy bars, so she decides to take shelter in one of the town’s buildings as she awaits rescue or Ben’s arrival.

As Nina explores the town, she discovers a trapdoor in a cellar. Hoping to find a stash of food, she climbs down to the cellar and finds a skeleton. She also finds a coat. Written on the label is PROPERTY OF LT HAWLEY. She takes the coat and a satchel because “the corpse doesn’t need them anymore,” then realizes “this may be the most American thought she’s ever had.”

In the satchel is a binder full of notes, a manuscript, and a “photocopy of what looks like an old-timey book: An Incident at Greyrock.” The book is a dime novel that tells the story of “a noble gunslinger named Anton Vargas and his crew: Fred Kipley and Doctor Maclean.” Set in 1902, the story describes a plea for help that the telegraph operator in Sunrise receives from a telegraph station in Greyrock that has been “beset by bandits, who are, it is implied, after the whiskey and the women.” Vargas and his companions ride to Greyrock and save the day, dispatching the bandits with “one shot apiece” as Vargas “directs the action like a ballet choreographer. He quips and jokes, shoots, hits every mark.”

LT Hawley’s manuscript, dated 2003, retells the story with less melodrama and greater realism. Hawley has researched Vargas and has given him a backstory that is considerably less heroic but much more human. At the age of 45 and dying of cancer, Vargas has returned after many years on the road, hoping to find Doctor Maclean, either to clear the air or to submit himself to a quick death at Maclean’s hands. Maclean’s whereabouts are unknown. Vargas joins a search party for a boy who has gone missing and eventually learns the secret of the boy’s disappearance and Maclean’s current location.

A third story ties the past to the present. As part of her research, LT Hawley visited Sunrise, now a ghost town, and met Colin Yard, head of the Sand Draw Historical Society, an organization that keeps alive and glamorizes the legend of Vargas and the shootout at Greyrock. Colin prefers the dime novel version of Vargas — his historical society is meant to drive tourism, not to tell the unvarnished truth about the past — and he is not at all pleased with the revisionist take on history that Hawley is writing.

The Vargas story has no clear ending because history does not record how his life ends. Hawley could only speculate. In a rather melodramatic coincidence, Nina’s life ties in with Colin’s, providing some tense moments as the story nears its resolution.

Olbrecht’s characters are convincing and the stories she weaves together are fascinating. The novel’s greatest value lies in its different perspectives of history and its illustration of the preference that many have for a fanciful view of history rather than its less glamorous reality. We live in a time when some people are attempting to rewrite (or whitewash) history to make it more palatable to Americans who believe it is unamerican to tell the truth about our past. Perhaps it is that tendency that motivated Olbrecht to focus the story on the dire consequences of replacing an accurate view of history for one that is more suited to those who presently hold power.

Sunrise brings deft storytelling to a complex narrative. The novel combines an old-timey western with modern sensibilities, adds elements of a thriller as it nears its climax, and gives its sympathetic heroine a chance to remake her life. While Olbrecht holds back on the shining prose that made The Tiger’s Wife so memorable, and while Vargas’ true nature seems a bit forced, those criticisms are dwarfed by the skill with which she weaves together the elements that make Sunrise so hard to put down.

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