Name: So Far Gone
Author: Jess Walter

So Far Gone is Jess Walter’s new gripping darkly comedic literary novel exploring the perils of modern American society. We reviewed the audiobook narrated by Edoardo Ballerini.

So Far Gone by Jess Walter - Audiobook Review

Publication: Harper Audio, June 2025.

Unabridged Audiobook: 8 hours 20 minutes, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

Genre: Literature, Drama, Humour, Action-Adventure, Mystery

So Far Gone Publisher Synopsis

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins—and in the propulsive spirit of Charles Portis’ True Grit—comes a hilarious, empathetic, and brilliantly provocative adventure through life in modern America, about a reclusive journalist forced back into the world to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.

Rhys Kinnick has gone off the grid. At Thanksgiving a few years back, a fed-up Rhys punched his conspiracy-theorist son-in-law in the mouth, chucked his smartphone out a car window and fled for a cabin in the woods, with no one around except a pack of hungry raccoons.

Now Kinnick’s old life is about to land right back on his crumbling doorstep. Can this failed husband and father, a man with no internet and a car that barely runs, reemerge into a broken world to track down his missing daughter and save his sweet, precocious grandchildren from the members of a dangerous militia?

With the help of his caustic ex-girlfriend, a bipolar retired detective, and his only friend (who happens to be furious with him), Kinnick heads off on a wild journey through cultural lunacy and the rubble of a life he thought he’d left behind. So Far Gone is a rollicking, razor-sharp, and moving road trip through a fractured nation, from a writer who has been called “a genius of the modern American moment” (Philadelphia Inquirer).

Disclosure: If you click a link in this post we may earn a small commission to help offset our running costs.

My Review

Jess Walter is a wonderfully talented writer. I found his novels The Financial Lives of Poets and Beautiful Ruins thought-provoking, impactful and in turn highly memorable in different ways. Of the former, I recall withering prose and laughing out loud, and the latter, its haunting cinematic gravitas. Common to both was the accessibility of Walter’s characters and the poignancy of their individual stories.

Never afraid to write characters who express strong opinions, who question the status quo, characters who through their actions shine a light on the stories to be found in the mundane, in So Far Gone Jess Walter has penned a metaphorical bursting of the ‘cutting social commentary’ floodgates. I repeatedly found myself laughing out loud.

Over recent years few of us would have been immune to “WTF?” thoughts, so it’s hard not to empathise with lead Rhys’ palpable pent-up frustration. Plus Walter’s observational humour and depiction of comedic farce is second to none. And the taut plotting of hapless Rhys’ race against time to find family members aided by a cast of quirky, wise-cracking secondary characters keeps readers on the edge of their seats.

But what elevates So Far Gone from simply an hilarious rail against suburban disaffection, gun culture and religious extremism, to a moving and memorable journey is Walter’s depiction of poignant moments in his characters’ personal growth and redemption. Rhys’ interactions with his grandchildren are particularly endearing.

.

Edoardo Ballerini is one of my favourite audio narrators and his performance of So Far Gone did not disappoint. His pacing in tense moments added to the suspense and his delivery of the characters’ deadpan humour and sarcasm only enhances Walter’s nuanced and layered characterisation. I was thoroughly entertained.

If you find yourself engaged and captivated by darkly comedic car-crash storylines but are also in need of a good dose of humanity, I highly recommend Jess Walter’s So Far Gone. This novel’s bite won’t make the real-world insanity disappear, but you’ll certainly find it cathartic.