Winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize for Fiction selected by Ed Park
A novel described as Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson meets Child of God by Cormac McCarthy Lore by Roy Kesey is a searing novel about loneliness, grief, and mercy
Lore is a 76-year-old widow in rural Maryland who has chosen to seclude herself as a way to cope with her guilt and hide from a painful past. However as the pandemic intensifies her mind and body begins to fail, she begins to long for living beyond the confines of her mind and her home. What ensues is a deeply interior novel as Lore begins to reflect on her life, her marriage and his passing, home and the land where it resides, her neighbors, her husbands books which serve as both ritual and memorial, and her host of many animals including 10 parrots, a dog on wheels, and a cat we rarely see. 
Kesey’s newest novel follows along the tradition set by Claire Keegan and Denis Johnson. It has the sensitivity, interiority, and finds sacred value in the ordinary like a Marilyn Robinson novel and a sense of existential isolation in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy. Lore is a testament on the beauty of daily living and all that seems mundane. It’s a poignant contemplation of life, regret, hope, and community and begs the question: in a world undone, is our best hope for survival actually each other?