Let us begin at the ending, where I tell you that the final page of this book is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I’m not going to quote it here, because spoilers, but I want you to come into this essay knowing that if you read this book, and I hope you do, the ending will most likely make you cry, both because of the content and the sheer gorgeous writing. Téa Obreht’s Inland, a follow-up to her instant-classic The Tiger’s Wife, is a haunted Western. A frontier ghost story, it focuses on the kinds of people who don’t often get to star in tales of the Old West. It’s a funny, weird book, that has often, over the last few weeks, jumped into the front of my brain and demanded attention.