The Great Wherever A Novel

By: Shannon Sanders

Published by Henry Holt and Company, 2026-07-07

From an award-winning writer of "riotous and dazzling" stories (Deesha Philyaw), a debut novel that paints a sweeping portrait of a family and its history in the American South, from Reconstruction to the present day

At thirty-two, Aubrey Lamb is stumbling into adulthood. An underpaid gig worker in Washington, DC, she's grieving the recent loss of her father and the end of a serious relationship. When Aubrey learns that she has inherited a shared stake in a sizable Tennessee farm from her father, she sees an opportunity to get out of the city--and to erase a mounting pile of debt.

Watching her arrival with great interest are four ghosts--Aubrey's ancestors, who've staked their own claims to the farm, and who never hesitate to pass judgment on the choices and mistakes made by the living, whether romantic, financial, or sartorial. As Aubrey reconnects with her living family and faces pressure from developers, another story unfolds in parallel: the history of the land, beginning with its purchase by Thomas, Aubrey's great-grandfather and one of the first Black landowners in his community. Though Thomas hoped to give his children a homestead on which they could flourish, the
land proves to be a burdensome inheritance. Over the years, it divides the family, turning Thomas' descendants against each other and drawing the attention of neighbors eager to wrest the land from Black hands, culminating in a catastrophic tragedy that splinters the family and echoes down through the decades.

Now, as the clock ticks on a potential sale of the farm, the ghosts fear expulsion from the home they've made, and Aubrey must weigh the hopes and burdens of her forebears with the very real needs of her future.

An expansive family saga perfect for fans of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton and told with a wry and very modern voice, The Great Wherever is at once grand and intimate; it explores the ways we learn to define ourselves through and against our family, how we carry on after loss, and how the past lives on in all of us.