Absence: A Novel comes out May 5, 2026 from Soho Press in print and ebook, as well as audiobook.

In this moving, richly detailed speculative crime debut, the world is unraveling from an epidemic of human vanishing. Two novice investigators are dispatched to small-town Kansas to interview a woman who claims to have returned from Absence, offering answers to everything.

People are “popping,” disappearing one-by-one, into thin air: an ongoing global cataclysm known as Spontaneous Human Absence. In a world where prospects for survival are increasingly grim, hopelessness prevails, political rifts widen, and doomsday predictions flourish.

Harvey Ellis works the night shift for the Bureau of Depopulation Affairs, an ad hoc federal agency meant to contain and catalog the crisis. His job: to investigate claims of Absence, and, if validated, issue a standard government stipend to boost morale. Still recovering from losses of his own, Harvey is content in his routine—until his life is shaken up by an unexpected assignment from the central office.

A woman long thought Absent has reappeared in her hometown of Dawnville, Kansas, claiming she’s been to the other side and back. Is her story true, or is she just the latest false prophet, offering hope to a world desperate for answers? Together with his no-BS partner Shonda Erins, Harvey travels to Dawnville to find out.

A sweeping portrait of a world beset by confusion and dismay, Andrew Dana Hudson’s debut novel is a vividly imagined speculative mystery of cosmic proportions, examining the stories we tell to get by.

Preorder now!

Praise for Absence

“Hudson gives a skillful metaphysical twist to a tale of apocalyptic horror in this strikingly original novel.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A haunted story about unfinished lives, the persistence of hope, and the consequences of grief without end.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“A wild, inventive, and extraordinarily prescient novel, Andrew Dana Hudson’s Absence unspools a moody detective yarn that quickly vaults sky-high, weighing humankind’s slow numbing against daily horrors and faith’s struggle against the impossible. And yet most impressively, within its nightmare of spontaneous gradual depopulation, much is made clear of our species’ capacity for hope. There simply aren’t enough books like it.”
—Jinwoo Chong, author of I Leave It Up to You and Flux

“In this engaging, closely observed and intensely humanistic story that reads like Mulder and Scully collecting the immanent evidence of the end of the world, Andrew Dana Hudson helps us see how the real path to a better tomorrow is through rediscovery of the connection and community we have lost.”
—Christopher Brown, author of Tropic of Kansas

“Absence is fascinating, shiningly clever, and thought-provoking. A thriller wrapped in dystopian almost-horror wrapped in a perfect enigma, anchored by a grounded and methodic agent named Harvey Ellis. Brilliant!”
—Manda Scott, Edgar-nominated bestselling author of No Good Deed

“A moving, enthralling story, set in a fully realized, beautifully examined world. Don’t let this one get away.”
—Sara Gran, author of Come Closer and the Claire DeWitt mysteries

“Andrew Dana Hudson’s debut novel succeeds on every level—an original and compelling mystery, told with assurance, intelligence, craft, and all of it fueled by an extraordinary imagination.”
—Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

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Other Books

Northern Lights: Four Energy Futures of the North (“Windy City,” “The Wild Tour,” “The Stillout,” “Spring Fires Day“) — Future Energy Stories, Luleå University of Technology, 2024.

Our Shared Storm: A Novel of Five Climate Futures — Fordham University Press (Kindle, Nook, paperback, exclusive hardcover), 2022.

Lo Stato Solare (edited by Francesco Verso and translated by Stefano Ternavasio) — An Italian-language collection of my short fiction, published by Future Fiction (paperback, Kindle), 2021.

The Games That Got Us Through — a visitation of Emerge Festival 2016 (in collaboration with Adam Flynn and Bryce Hidysmith).