After Eden: A Novel (Volume 17) (Literature of the American West Series) - Hardcover

Miner, Valerie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806138149 ISBN 13: 9780806138145

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007

Synopsis

After Eden is a provocative novel that examines the meaning of home and homelessness among people who see such issues as more than abstractions. In a story populated by Pomo Indians, Euro-American ranchers and vintners, and Mexican American migrant laborers, Valerie Miner deftly juxtaposes differing cultural views of wilderness, trespassing, and home. Her dramatic novel is contemporary, while reflecting on two centuries of change in a seemingly Edenic place.

Looking forward to relief from her job as a city planner in Chicago, Emily Adams begins a much-needed vacation at her Northern California cabin. But the sudden death of her life partner forces her to re-examine personal commitments. Caught up in reflection, she comes to understand the intricacies of life in her pastoral retreat—complexities that she had never before considered.

In the modern-day Eden of California’s coastal range, Emily finds conflict all around her: between loggers and environmentalists, farmworkers and immigration authorities, newcomers establishing a lesbian community and long-time residents clinging to traditional ways.

As Emily learns to overcome grief, her story moves from loss to renewal for both the individual and the community. A decidedly feminist view of the New West, After Eden weaves lyrical prose with a different look at “family values” and what it really means to be human.

About this title

About the Author

Valerie Miner is the award-winning author of thirteen books. Her new novel, After Eden, is published in the "Literature of the American West Series" by the University of Oklahoma Press. Other novels include Range of Light, A Walking Fire, Winter's Edge, Blood Sisters, All Good Women, Movement: A Novel in Stories, and Murder in the English Department. Her short fiction books include Abundant Light, The Night Singers and Trespassing. Her collection of essays is Rumors from the Cauldron: Selected Essays, Reviews and Reportage.

Valerie Miner's work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Salmagundi, New Letters, Ploughshares, The Village Voice, Prairie Schooner, The Gettysburg Review, Conditions, The T.L.S., The Women?s Review of Books, The Nation and other journals. Her stories and essays are published in more than sixty anthologies. Her collaborative work includes books, museum exhibits as well as theatre. A number of her pieces have been dramatized on BBC Radio 4.

She has won fellowships and awards from The Rockefeller Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The NEA, The Jerome Foundation, The Heinz Foundation, The Australia Council Literary Arts Board and numerous other sources. She has had Fulbright Fellowships to Tunisia, India and Indonesia.

Winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award, she has taught for over twenty-five years and is now an artist-in-residence and professor at Stanford University. She travels internationally giving readings, lectures and workshops. She and her partner live in San Francisco and Mendocino County, California

Reviews

Miner skillfully presents Chicago urban planner Emily, whose annual return to a Northern California women's land collective for rest and relaxation in her cabin turns to tragedy when her life partner's flight goes down in flames. So, too, do her hopes for happiness here despite the kind support of her neighbors and the land's breathtaking beauty. Michael, her attorney brother, arrives to assist his sister on her slow journey through grief and healing and becomes increasingly attracted to the landscape and one of the women. He finances Emily's extended leave from work when a neighbor's accident motivates his sister to stay and help out, but she soon begins to see trouble in paradise. A rash of fires is thought to be arson. Is it the work of migrant farmworkers, or maybe environmentalists? The logging interests who find it cheaper to sell the land to vintners than reforest? Miner weaves a gripping tapestry of conflicting interests in a novel in which nature is a major character. Whitney Scott
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0806138149
• ISBN 13: 9780806138145
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 260