‘The Dead Lands’; Adventure story set in future mines the past

In Benjamin Percy's 'The Dead Lands” (Grand Central Publishing, 416 pages, $26), Lewis and Clark set off from St. Louis and head west to discover who and what might be found along the Missouri River and on to the Pacific Ocean. It's a familiar journey, but Percy offers a twist: his Lewis and Clark leave a St. Louis walled off from the world and under despotic rule to venture into a post-apocalyptic America.

It's a bold idea, and Percy carries it off with aplomb, crafting a gripping adventure story set in the future but haunted by the past. Drawn from their home by the arrival of the mysterious Gawea, Lewis Meriwether and Mina Clark assemble a party and flee. They seek hope for themselves and the hopeless populace of St. Louis, which is now known as the Sanctuary, a name increasingly less apt day by day.

Lewis is a curator of the past and a man of science, but he also is imbued with strange powers as a result of the mutations sparked by nuclear fallout. Clark is a headstrong woman, longing for a better life and for the chance to lead rather than follow. Gawea is an outsider with secrets whose loyalty is sorely tested.

The book is an exciting and beautiful blending of literary sensibilities and storytelling prowess that defies easy categorization (see related interview). Percy mines our present day fears - unstoppable illnesses, reckless warmongering - and presents us with a nightmare scenario. But even as he shows us history repeating itself, he also calls our attention to the resiliency and ingenuity of humans in the face of hardship and peril.

IF YOU GO

What: Benjamin Percy and Nickolas Butler read from their work

Where: Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City

When: 7 p.m. Monday

Cost: Free