The Great Wherever

by Shannon Sanders

The Great Wherever is Shannon Sanders’s debut novel, a sweeping family saga set on a Tennessee farm that spans from Reconstruction to the present day. Thirty‑two‑year‑old Aubrey Lamb, a grieving gig worker from Washington, DC, inherits her late father’s share of the land and hopes to escape city life and debt. Upon arriving in Lanyer County she meets a cast of relatives and discovers that the farm was originally granted to her great‑grandfather Thomas, one of the first Black landowners in the area. The property becomes a source of both pride and conflict, dividing descendants and attracting outsiders eager to wrest it away. As a catastrophic tragedy strikes the Lamb family, the ghosts of ancestors interject with gossipy commentary, blurring the line between past and present. Sanders blends the expansive scope of Southern historical fiction with a modern voice, exploring themes of grief, identity, intergenerational trauma, and the lingering presence of history in everyday life.