Happy audiobook birthday to Foreign Seed, the debut novel by O. Henry Prize-winning author, Allison Alsup!
Called “one of the most satisfying novels I’ve read in a long time” by Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo, Foreign Seed is equal parts mystery and epic literary fiction. Inspired by historical events, the novel plunges readers into the search for a man who seems to vanish out of thin air in rural China in 1918.
When the explorer Frank Meyer suddenly disappears from a ferry on the Yangtze River, American Vice-Consul Samuel Sokobin is tasked with finding the missing man. By the time Sokobin receives the case, four days have passed since Meyer was last seen on the vast river. With no clues to guide his search and fearing failure in his new post as a man of rank, Sokobin heads upriver with Mr. Lin, a Chinese interpreter he’s never met. The investigation soon turns deeply personal for Sokobin, who can’t help but conflate Meyer’s fate with that of his own daring younger brother—a fighter pilot gone MIA in the world war. As Sokobin continues to search for answers, this mental connection threatens to break him, and he’s forced to contend with the biggest question of all: what do we do when the answers we most desperately seek are the very ones that elude us?
A sweeping tale of loss and grief, Foreign Seed is a moving testament to friendship, faith, and the resilience of the human spirit.