Book excerpt: For fans of The Wager and Mutiny on the Bounty comes a thrilling true tale of power, obsession, and betrayal at the edge of the world. In 1808, an American merchant ship happened upon an uncharted island in the South Pacific and unwittingly solved the biggest nautical mystery of the era: the whereabouts of a band of fugitives who, after seizing their vessel, had disappeared into the night with their Tahitian companions. Pitcairn Island was the perfect hideaway from British authorities, but after nearly two decades of isolation its secret society had devolved into a tribalistic hellscape; a real-life Lord of the Flies, rife with depravity and deception. Seven generations later, the island’s diabolical past still looms over its 48 residents; descendants of the original mutineers, marooned like modern castaways. Only a rusty cargo ship connects Pitcairn with the rest of the world, just four times a year. In 2018, Brandon Presser rode the freighter to live among its present-day families; two clans bound by circumstance and secrets. While on the island, he pieced together Pitcairn’s full story: an operatic saga that holds all who have visited in its mortal clutch—even the author. Told through vivid historical and personal narrative, The Far Land goes beyond the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty, offering an unprecedented glimpse at life on the fringes of civilization, and how, perhaps, it’s not so different from our own.