Challenger

2025 Foreword Indies Finalist for General Fiction

When twelve-year-old Junah Simmons walks into his middle school classroom in September 1999, the chalkboard reads THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE. 

In the months leading up to Y2K, Junah's eccentric teacher tasks each of her students to make a time capsule in a shoe box to document their experiences in South Carolina at the end of the world.

Junah is an outsider at school, the kid in sunglasses with a speech impediment. Through the time capsule project, he sifts through the tough stuff: his parents divorce; Rusty, the school bully; Sadie, his punk crush who doesn’t know he exists; his mother’s pressure on him to turn to Jesus; his worry and loneliness. Rendered in vignettes and scraps, this kaleidoscopic novel follows Junah as he confronts the catastrophes of youth while wrestling with the notion that the world itself could end in December.

Funny, soulful, and timely, Dan Leach’s Junah at the End of the World reminds us that it’s only after accepting the world’s end that we can discover what it means to truly live. With the wit of George Singleton and the punk charm of Sam Pink, Dan Leach is a writer to watch.