Stricken with terminal cancer from his work cleaning up a historic coal ash spill years earlier, Joseph Quillen is trying to come to terms with the end of his life. But as he prepares to say goodbye, his adult son suddenly disappears. At the same time, the man responsible for the toxic conditions of the cleanup also vanishes. Fearing a connection between the two, and that his son may be pursuing an act of environmental revenge, Joseph is forced back into the life he has been trying to leave behind. Joined by his estranged wife, Grace, he searches through the woods and back roads of their small Tennessee community, piecing together clues that suggest a path toward violence—and irreversible loss.

Inspired by the real-life Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill of 2008, the largest industrial spill in U.S. history, The World Itself is an eco-thriller about family, consequence, and the long shadow of environmental destruction. As grief and guilt collide, one question remains: what is left to save, when the world itself has already been broken?

Praise for The World Itself

“Charles Dodd White’s The World Itself is a timely, haunting, at times heart-wrenching novel of the Joseph Quillen family’s unraveling in the aftermath of a toxic spill’s devastating effects on their rural community. A gripping, literary thriller in which a morally just man struggles to come to grips with his own responsibility for the unspooling of his family against a backdrop where the natural world itself is a central character. Highly recommended.”

—Matthew F. Jones, author of A Reckoning Up Black Cat Hollow and A Single Shot

“A beautiful novel about the legacy of regret, and how shame can both corrupt and redeem. The World Itself is a meditative exploration of cause, blame, and responsibility in the wake of environmental catastrophe.”

—John Woods, author of Lady Chevy

“Set in the aftermath of an environmental disaster, The World Itself is an elegiac tale that will, page after page, strike readers right in the heart. Nobody writes about Appalachia like Charles Dodd White. At once tender and tough, The World Itself is peopled with unforgettable characters caught up in forces beyond their control. You won’t read a finer novel about fathers and sons.”

—Caleb Johnson, author of Treeborne