Peter Heller has an uncanny ability to, as he puts it, hear the train whistle from around the bend. In 2012, he penned his debut novel, The Dog Stars, about a postapocalyptic world ravaged by a never-before-seen virus. Within a decade, COVID-19 emerged, creating a pandemic that has killed more than seven million people worldwide. Then, in 2019, he wrote The River, about college friends trying to outrun a massive wildfire—among other dangers—in northern Canada. In the years since, Canadian provinces have seen some of their most active fire seasons in recorded history. “It’s a little weird,” Heller admits.

His eighth work of fiction, Burn, was published on August 13 (Knopf) and follows two lifelong friends and hunting partners who emerge from the woods of Maine to find a civil war has erupted. The president is dead. Local militias are leading a secession effort. And the federal government is firebombing rural towns. As the protagonists, one of whom calls Denver home, race for the Atlantic coast, they encounter gun battles, mass graves, and other grisly artifacts of happier times. “There’s been so many rumblings about secession in various places,” Heller says. “I do think we’re in a particularly fraught time. I fear for us, and I think that’s partly what I’m addressing.”

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Delivering a healthy dose of existential fear to readers is, of course, nothing new for Heller. Burn shares much in common with The Dog Stars: a fallen society, themes of love and loneliness, survivalists trudging through a dystopian wilderness. But Burn is no rerun. Heller’s latest work imagines a localized insurrection, not a total collapse of civilization. And it offers hope that normality exists elsewhere, if only his characters can reach it. Still, Heller recognizes the similarities between his 2024 release and the soulful surreality he conjured in his first novel. “All my stories are certainly about loss, about dealing with grief, about the juxtaposition then with the wonder and beauty of the Earth,” he says. “Maybe those themes repeat, and I’m happy to be exploring them.”

As Burn hit shelves, it landed in the hands of readers who had recently witnessed the near assassination of a presidential candidate, who had learned that the nation’s current president would not seek re-election, and who were likely anticipating increased societal rifts ahead of a potentially historic election. While Heller is adamant he doesn’t want the pages of Burn to come alive, he believes there’s a sense of authenticity to everything he writes. “There’s this real feeling of inevitability in my work,” he says. “It’s like this is happening in a multiverse, where it happened on another plane and feels in some sense to me inalterable.” Yes, Heller is rooting for us all, but it’s possible that, in his latest work, he’s hearing that distant whistle once again.

Peter Heller’s Favorite Local Authors

When the Burn author isn’t fashioning tales of fragile societies, he’s often reading local authors. Here, two of his favorite Centennial State–based writers.

Paolo Bacigalupi

One of Heller’s literary contemporaries, Bacigalupi is an acclaimed science fiction author who covers vast ground. The Paonia-based writer’s latest work, Navola, was published in July and takes readers on a fantastical journey through an ancient kingdom in a Game of Thrones–style thriller.

Craig Childs

As an award-winning chronicler of southwest Colorado history, Childs has helped readers understand the landscape—and its inhabitants—via more than a dozen nonfiction books. In Tracing Time, published in 2022, he focuses on the rock art of the Colorado Plateau.

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