Trapped in a dead-end teaching job, a toxic relationship, and a cramped Manhattan apartment, Koögon abandons it all for the Center: a secluded compound devoted to yoga, “empathic studies,” and the secret preservation of banned books. At first, the Center seems like a sanctuary—but Koögon uncovers a thrilling secret. Amid nationwide paper bans, the Center maintains a black-market cache of blank notebooks, and Koögon must decide whether it is safe to leave her story for future generations.

Blending rich characterization with psychological complexity, At the Center reckons with the loss of printed material, the climate crisis, and the destabilizing rise of AI. At its heart, it is a visceral, courageous meditation on the power and risk of telling one’s story—out loud and on paper.

Praise for At the Center

“I raced through Lara Tupper’s latest novel At the Center, as if on a scavenger hunt, eagerly stopping for clues to the exact nature of the untenable situation the narrator had trapped herself in the past (in an angry long-term relationship) and present (at a possibly cult-y yoga center). A looming sense of threat, as the book’s surreal and dystopic threads resolved, had me sprinting even faster, eager to understand not just how the story, but the book’s various themes, would dovetail, and especially curious about how the narrator would reconcile her conflicts with herself and others. An intriguing, complex book about the use and misuse of both power and empathy.”

—Debra Spark, author of Discipline and Unknown Caller (finalist, Maine Literary Award)

“By turns witty and harrowing, and set in a near-future that dismally suggests where we’re heading, At the Center features a protagonist who’s fiercely feminist even as she allows her agenda to be trampled, and admirably fearless in her willingness to lay bare just how paralyzed anxiety has made her. Lara Tupper is devastating on both the nature of a co-dependent abusive relationship and the sanctimony and manipulative resourcefulness of the self-discovery/spiritual recovery industry.”

—Jim Shepard, author of Like You’d Understand, Anyway (finalist, National Book Award; The Story Prize) and The Book of Aron (PEN New England Award)

“In poetic, spare, and constantly surprising prose, Lara Tupper imagines a dystopian future in which a paper ban has transformed society. In this dark new world, one woman journeys to the mysterious ‘Center’ to rediscover herself on the page. But does the Center truly offer freedom or has she simply stumbled into a new prison? A story about the power and peril of empathy, about the ghosts of the past and the courage needed to leave one’s old life behind, At the Center is also a passionate crie de coeur for the written word’s essential role in human experience.”

—Alexis Schaitkin, author of Saint X (A New York Times Notable Book and Hulu Original Series) and Elsewhere (finalist, Carol Shields Prize)

“Lara Tupper’s At the Center is a psychologically astute, dystopian novel set in a compellingly believable near-future in which not only books but paper itself is banned. Against this background of erasure, the unnamed narrator attempts to recover from great personal trauma by becoming a ‘volunteer’ at the secluded and seemingly spiritual Center, a place that promises healing through discipline and—ironically—committing the Volunteer’s most private thoughts to paper. Tupper skillfully navigates this potentially bleak terrain through lyrical language and dark humor. Layered, nuanced, and deeply original, At the Center is both a shrewd political commentary on what happens when well-intentioned reform becomes just another method of institutional control and a compelling examination of the limits of self-actualization.”

—Cynthia Reeves, author of The Last Whaler (Indie Reader Discovery Award; finalist, Maine Literary Award) and Falling Through the New World

“Full of feeling, At the Center explores a dystopian world where paper is banned, AI rules society, and a cult religion runs rampant. And yet, the real pleasure of this novel comes from the ‘love story’ that cuts through it all. A wise and, yes, romantic book for our times.”

—Leigh Newman, author of Nobody Gets Out Alive (longlisted, National Book Award) and Still Points North