Late Returns

Subterranean Press is pleased to present a heavily illustrated edition of Joe Hill’s modern classic novella, Late Returns, featuring a full-color dust jacket, full-color endsheets, and ten ful-color interior illustrations by Francois Vaillancourt. Our edition of Late Returns will be printed in full-color, on premium paper, and housed in a custom slipcase.

About the Book:

Commercial truck driver John Davies finds out about the death of his parents from a letter written by his father. He returns to their modest family home in Kingsward, New Hampshire, to deal with the aftermath. Where, in a shoebox under the bed, he finds his mother’s overdue copy of the novel Another Marvelous Thing. When he brings it to the local library, he ends up with a gig driving a vintage Bookmobile covered in psychedelic literary murals. It feels meant to be--especially given that his parents first met in the very same vehicle, grabbing for the lone copy of a Portrait of Joan Baez LP.

In a story that’s strongly reminiscent of Jack Finney, John soon learns that the Bookmobile doesn’t only receive visitors from the present. Ghosts, known as “late returns,” show up from time to time, seeing books from the future as blurs or with magically transformed jackets that fit their period. They show up looking for stories only the Bookmobile can give them. But John begins to wonder if he can change their pasts, if he can save those in need of it… 

New York Times bestselling fan favorite Joe Hill is in peak form in this novella Late Returns, crafting a surprising and heady brew of nostalgia, heartbreak, and, above all, hope, borne of the ways stories transform us and the ways we transform each other’s lives. Books have always reached across and through time, but never quite like this. 

Limited: 500 signed numbered hardcovers, housed in a custom slipcase

Lettered: 26 signed copies, bradel bound, housed in a custom traycase