When Horace Greeley advised Americans to “Go West!” a century and a half ago, it’s doubtful he envisioned someone like Calvin Hopper. Greeley’s advice was full of promise and optimism; Hopper, who has lived and breathed the East all his life, wants only a place to escape.
Fifty years old and adrift, Hopper is trying to shed the remnants of a relationship that has collapsed for the second and final time. He envisions the West as a place in which to disappear; and Sage, Montana, becomes the way station on a journey whose endpoint he hasn’t really considered.
Sage is isolated by both weather and topography, but despite its sleepy appearance and a smattering of old-west kitsch, it hides a multitude of secrets, many of which extend well beyond its borders and involve residents who, like Hopper, have sought solitude but failed.
As he becomes enmeshed in the life of the town and sees the possibility of starting over, he uncovers more about its past. Soon isolation is no longer an option: unless Cal Hopper can expose those secrets, his own life may end in the place where he sought a new beginning.
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