NEED TO KNOW
\nAuthor Kendra Langford Shaw has a new family epic,\u00a0The Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianos, hitting shelves in May 2026The forthcoming novel follows the Spahrs family, after they settle in the far reaches of the Arctic, and the “unexpected industry that keeps them afloat for generations\u201d\u00a0Read an exclusive excerpt from the novel here<\/p>\n
PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the new family saga, The Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianos<\/a>, from author Kendra Langford Shaw. The forthcoming novel will be published next spring by Penguin Random House.\n<\/p>\n The upcoming epic follows the Spahrs family across generations after they settle, \u201cagainst all odds, in the far reaches of the Arctic and the unexpected industry that keeps them afloat for generations,\u201d per the book’s official synopsis.\n<\/p>\n \u201cThe Pillagers\u2019 Guide to Arctic Pianos travels through generations, backward to the Spahrs\u2019 homesteader origins and forward to their descendants, eccentrics and optimists all,\u201d the description reads. \u201cAn unforgettable and inventive ode to the abiding love of family and pull of home, even as the home we love becomes ever more challenging to inhabit.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Langford Shaw exclusively tells PEOPLE how her own childhood inspired the novel, explaining that she grew up in Alaska in the early 80s, \u201cwhen the state boomed with oil money.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cMy father, a music teacher, delivered musical instruments to bush schools and I began this novel imagining one of the float planes he flew in going down,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat would’ve happened to all those instruments over time? And what if instead of one plane, thousands had met the same fate? How would that have affected the local economy and one family’s ability to navigate peaks and booms over generations?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cThis book is set in the Territory of the Arctic where climate change can no longer be ignored and, like the renovated bed-and-breakfast I grew up in, the Spahr family house is in a constant state of turmoil.”<\/p>\n Read on for an exclusive excerpt from The Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianos<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n “The Pillagers’ Guide to Arctic Pianos”.<\/p>\n Camille Gobourg<\/p>\n My little brother, Finley, drowned the first time wrestling the Napoleon pianoforte under the galactic starlight of an Arctic sunset; the way he later told the story, the piano had it coming. Our family had spent the day knee-deep in Disillusionment Bay, gigging beach frogs and slugging fireweed tea. Our parents were up the sand, loose and recumbent, snacking on octopus jerky and reading aloud journal entries my great-great-great-great-grandfather kept as his family traversed the territory to homestead a new life. Beside them on the blanket my little sister, Temperance, sang as she patted black sand into fritters and called to me: \u201cHere\u2019s your pancake, Milda!\u201d It had been a long, dreamy day, I remember: honey in the air and the sharp crick of apples crisping on the trees. Down the beach Madam LeFleur stood on the porch of her boardinghouse beating slugs off a yak wool rug. Floatplanes droned overhead. Deep in the Singing Spruce Forest bear hunters unsnapped their rifles and began the long lope home.\n<\/p>\n I was sticky with salt and Finley was out too far. He was a strong swimmer for a 9-year-old, but no more than 70 pounds at full stomach. That was nothing against the rip curl. At first I didn\u2019t pay too much attention to him \u2014 Finley was always diving after oddities. Always before, he\u2019d resurface within a breath or two, brandishing a tuning fork or an urchin shell. A brand-new trophy to add to his collection in our attic eaves. Earlier that summer he\u2019d spent weeks gathering bones from a dead sea lion, then wired the skeleton together and mounted it in the attic rafters so that it hung over our hammocks. Not long after, we\u2019d rocked to sleep one night while Finley guessed what the lion might\u2019ve eaten for a last meal and if he\u2019d mated for life. Bones don\u2019t tell you that kind of stuff, I said. Ever since then we\u2019d swung to sleep in silence.\n<\/p>\n Kendra Langford Shaw.<\/p>\n Mary Kate Teske<\/p>\n Finley\u2019s knobby elbows finned the surface as he swam out past the break. The moment before he lost the surface he turned back and called, \u201cDo you see it, Milda?\u201d\n<\/p>\n I looked beyond him: nothing but breakwater, the surface a lace of algae blooms.\n<\/p>\n Then my little brother was gone.\n<\/p>\n Before I registered what was happening \u2014 what might have happened, that dark yaw of despair threatening to swallow our family whole \u2014 my mother was up and high-kicking against the tide. We, the Spahrs of Jubilation House, were a family of bravado and rosin, heart tattoos along our collarbones, moles tucked into nooks and crannies. My mother, Viola Bloomer \u2014 pinochle enthusiast and pilot \u2014 drew a great breath and dove after her son, legs butterflying up into a neat pike. A terrible minute passed. Two, then three. Temperance let loose a banshee wail. I felt my father\u2019s hand on my shoulder.\n<\/p>\n