It begins with a grabby hook: One June morning in Maker’s Bell, Pennsylvania, a girl starts sleepwalking. She doesn’t speak. She doesn’t respond. She leaves her farm, then her town, walking road after road, staring ahead, never deviating from a course only she can see. Others join her. Then more. Days pass. The group grows, and walks, and America watches—first curious, then concerned, then panicked. Their panic gets a touch stronger when a cop learns the hard way that if a sleepwalker is separated and held back, they explode in a burst of blood and bone. Shana, the big sister of the first sleepwalker, walks alongside “the flock” as one of its “shepherds.” Medical investigator Benji utilizes Black Swan, a hyper-advanced AI, to try to learn what the hell’s happening. Small-town preacher Matthew is sucked into a festering underworld of paranoia and nationalism. And around them all, our climate changes. “Though civilization was making fast strides toward a renewable future,” knows Benji, “it was far, far too late.” Wanderers is a few things: a tense mystery; an Outbreak-style medical thriller; a sprawling, Stephen King-esque epic. But mostly it’s a book about America right now—and much like America right now, it’s a potent blend of fear, confusion, and guarded, fragile hope.