In "The Beforeland," a boy’s desperate act of rebellion against his grandmother reverberates outward, causing rifts and reckonings in the lives of others. Set in the Mojave Desert and the suburbs of Southern California, this revelatory novel moves swiftly among characters who are caught between the deprivations of the past and the mysteries of the future. With unflinching precision, Vallianatos unearths the vulnerability and volatility at our cores.