# Deb Olin Unferth, "Earth 7: A Novel" (Graywolf Press 2026)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-network-529292/deb-olin-unferth-earth-7-a-novel-graywolf-press-2026
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-network-529292/deb-olin-unferth-earth-7-a-novel-graywolf-press-2026.md
Podcast: [New Books Network](https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-network-529292)
Published: 2026-06-11T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK6795241521.mp3
Audio file: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK6795241521.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-network-529292/episodes/deb-olin-unferth-earth-7-a-novel-graywolf-press-2026
Duration seconds: 3246

## Resource

Well, that’s about it for the story of planet Earth, poor Earth, reduced to not much more than a piece of burnt coal. But, as Deb Olin Unferth shows in her latest electrifying novel, life and love persist, even in the most unexpected, inhospitable places.Two women meet on a beach of artificial sand. One was raised in a pod in the ocean and the other may or may not be a robot. Their love—or any love—seems so unlikely. Earth is severely depopulated. Some people have given up, gone off to Mars. Others pursue eternal life as digital code. And yet others, like Dylan and Melanie, are holdouts—and some of those holdouts are constructing a vast molecular collection in hopes that a future person may be alive to make a new Earth. Foolhardy? Misguided? Quixotic? Probably. But what can a human (or a robot) do?By the end of Unferth’s wild, poetic, revelatory, and slyly philosophical novel, the reader has traveled to the very edges of the cosmos as a “soul globule” and between grains of sand as a microscopic tardigrade. A slim book tackling big questions (is all matter conscious? will we tech ourselves into salvation, or out of existence?), Earth 7 (Graywolf Press 2026) is a poignant inquiry into death, mourning, and indefatigable life, the most exhilarating work to date by one of our most original and beloved writers. Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Books Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney’s. She’s a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center, the New Writers’ Project, and she also directs the Pen City Writers, the pr…

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